


Importance of Family

by daenabenjen42



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Barnes Family, Family Feels, Gen, Gifts from Grandchildren, Irony, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Print Scrubs, Spry Elderly Person, Team Recovering Amnesiac Trauma Survivor, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-15 22:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7241251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daenabenjen42/pseuds/daenabenjen42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a former assassin who is a man outside his time, it is long past time to come in from the wind...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monkeys, Love Stinks, and Sea Turtles...

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I've run out of disclaimer jokes. Not me. Marvel. Disney.  
> A/N: This was the Left or Right Turn at Albuquerque where Rebecca Barnes Proctor popped up due to my doing age-math (plot bunnies can come from the oddest places), and it was going to be a viggie, to be posted with the rest of them later on... until I realized how much fun it was having her around. **grin** So... it'll be more than one part. Onward.

Two years ago...

 

It was just after four o'clock in the afternoon on the second day of Sam's bedside vigil when another in a seemingly endless parade of visitors showed up. Unlike the others, who'd been either Steve's fellow Avengers, Colonel Fury or that Hill woman, or former SHIELD agents checking in on the Captain's wellbeing, this one was an elderly woman wearing print scrubs (Black with Pink and Green Monkeys and pink pants) who was carrying a cane but not using it to support herself, and what appeared to be a grandkid behind her who was carrying what looked like an overnight bag. Sam blinked as she strode to the bedside and grabbed Steve's wrist, stared down at him while taking his pulse. Seemingly satisfied after a minute or so, she looked at Sam. "Who are you and why did the hospital have to call me instead of Romanoff?"

"Ma'am?"

"I'm on his emergency contacts list for health reasons, and I know most of his team, with the exception of the Norse Demigod and the flying, armored rich guy. And really, I'd have been here sooner, but DC was on lock down and no one would let me to leave Brooklyn for twenty-four hours. So who are you?"

Sam frowned at the very obvious Brooklyn accent, then stood and held out his hand for her to shake. "Sam Wilson. You?"

"Rebecca Barnes Proctor," she replied with a small smile and returned his handshake. "Good to meet you, Sam."

Sam blinked again, suddenly making the connection. This couldn't be Barnes's sister... could she? Wouldn't she be ninety-something? "Barnes?"

"Yes." She studied him for a moment, keen blue eyes missing nothing. "Something wrong?"

"Not precisely," Sam said as he slowly sat down again and shrugged. "Also not my story to tell, Mrs. Proctor."

"Buck?" The sudden vocalization startled both of them and they looked down to find that Steve's were open and he was peering at them blearily, but not with any actual awareness. "Ma?"

Rebecca hooked the cane on the bed railing, bent over as far as she could, and cupped the side of his face that wasn't black and blue. "Shh, Sweetheart. Go back to sleep now. We'll be right here when you wake." Steve stared at her for long moments before sleep took him again. Rebecca watched him for a moment before turning her attention to the young man that had followed her in. "I need my bag, James."

"Which one, Grandma?"

"You can't guess?"

James paused and brought both over to her, setting the big one on the ground and giving her the smaller one. "Oh, I can guess." He got a good look at Steve and winced. "I wonder what the other guy looked like. Wow."

Sam frowned. "So you're James...?"

"Proctor, Mr. Wilson. James Proctor."

Rebecca rolled her eyes and pulled a purple stethoscope out of the smaller bag. "And he's leaving because he has school tomorrow."

"But Grandma-"

"James, I didn't need you to drive me, and I thank you for the company, but I will not allow you to miss classes. You've seen Steve, now go home, and tell Miriam I'll call when I want a ride home. Steve will be fine, what with his new-fangled metabolism and all." Then she put the stethoscope in her ears and listened to Steve's breathing.

James rolled his eyes and looked at Sam. "She's always like this when she's mad."

Sam smiled. "Sounds like my mother, actually. Go on. We'll be fine."

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

"Eat something before you get back on the road," Rebecca called after him as she put the stethoscope back in her bag, seemingly satisfied. Then she looked around, frowning. "Where's his chart?"

Sam nodded to the nearby computer screen. "EMR system."

She paused, made a face. "I hate that. Still adjusting to not having paper charts at home, too, and computers just aren't the same. Did you see if the nurses typed in a password or not?"

"They did."

"Know what it is?"

"No."

"Rats."

"But I do know how he ended up this way. Shot three times and punched... a lot."

Rebecca nodded, went to pull the other chair in the room closer to the bed, and sat down. "Thank you."

"Or you could go and badger the nurses... it's boring, waiting for him to actually wake up, you know?" Sam glanced at the sleeping man. "Didn't expect him to hallucinate his mother or..."

Rebecca smiled as she pulled out a thick book and pulled the roll-away table over to set it on. "You didn't live through six winters with him after his mother passed away, Mr. Wilson. Winters were the worst, and Steve was the person most likely to get the flu, colds, or pneumonia."

"You mean those stories about him and poor health are true?"

She nodded gravely. "Very, very true."

~*~*~*~*~

Steve came to, finally, with a mumbled "on your left" when Rebecca had stepped out to use the ladies room and Sam finally couldn't stand the silence any longer and had put on the Troubleman soundtrack to listen to with an app on his phone. Sam smiled. "On my left, huh?"

"Yeah."

"What happened up there, Steve?"

Steve closed his eyes in remembrance. "I never want to have to break anyone's brainwashing ever again, Sam. And the look in his eyes, what I remember of it..."

"Bad?"

"Very."

Right then, Rebecca returned to the room and saw the pained expression on Steve's face. "You up for real this time, or do you still think I'm your mother?"

Steve stared at her. "Who called you? And you're too young to be my mother, Becca!"

"Ah, good." She frowned at him. "One, somebody from either the hospital or whatever is left of SHIELD called me because you made me your emergency contact. And two: who punched and shot you and why did you let them?"

Steve glanced at Sam. "You didn't tell her?"

"Not my story to tell."

Steve took a deep breath, let it out. "Becca, you're going to want to sit down for this. It's... I don't know. I lived it, and..."

"All right." She sat down obligingly. "Spill."

He took another deep, calming breath. It didn't really help settle his nerves. "Bucky punched me."

Rebecca stared at him, then reached over and felt his forehead, and he looked at her funny. "I'm just checking to make sure you're not still delirious, Steve. That's crazy talk. He's been dead for seventy years."

"No, he hasn't, Becca. And if I'm crazy, so are Sam and Natasha. He's alive. Probably confused as all hell, but alive. He's the one who shot and punched me."

"What?"

"And that's why I didn't try to explain it to her," Sam muttered. "Steve, you're starting in the middle."

Steve glared at him. "It's hard to explain, and I was there. She wasn't."

"My brother is alive?" Rebecca asked slowly. "But you said you watched him fall-"

"I did. I also pulled him off of an exam table after Zola did God only knows what to him, when I helped the 107th rescue themselves. Had I known then that Zola was experimenting with some form of the serum..." Steve shrugged. "We would have looked a little harder to find him. But I didn't know, damn it."

Rebecca blinked in shock. "Steve?"

"SHIELD arrested us after we were ambushed by a HYDRA operative and a handler team yesterday. The operative turned out to be Bucky... a very amnesic and brainwashed Bucky who didn't even remember that people called him that. And that was the second time in two days that I saw him."

"What was the first?" Sam wondered.

"Fury. There was a rooftop involved and he caught my shield when I hurled it to knock him out. Not that I actually knew it was him at the time."

"Oh."

Rebecca nodded slowly. "So my brother shot you and punched you and you let him?"

"It wasn't 'let' so much as 'save the world, undo the brainwashing.'" Steve frowned. "And that's the last time I let Tony talk me into a Heroes marathon."

Rebecca chuckled at the thought of Steve watching Heroes, then sobered. "So if he's alive, where is he?"

Steve glanced at Sam again. "Good question."

"Don't look at me. You were alone on that riverbank when we found you."

"You let him walk off? Steve!"

"I was unconscious, Becca." He looked at her scrub top with the pink and green monkeys. "Who picked that one out?"

"Mason. Said everybody needed monkeys in their life. And being unconscious is a bad excuse, Steve."

"It's not an excuse if it's true!"

"Not so. I know for a fact that an unconscious person can unknowingly grab people and refuse to let go..."

~*~*~*~

Rebecca insisted on going to the graveyard with them to meet up with Fury. There, wearing yet another animal themed scrub top, this one light blue with skunks and hearts which apparently was called 'love stinks' in the catalog one of her grandchildren had ordered it out of, she met the man who had nearly died twice in the same day at HYDRA's orders to the Winter Soldier. "You look good for a dead man."

Fury frowned at her as he came to a stop in front of them. "Who are you?"

Steve chuckled. "This is Rebecca, Nick. Bucky's younger sister."

"Also not happy that my brother got captured and brainwashed for seventy years and no one knew," Rebecca grumbled.

Fury blinked his one eye at her in surprise. "Oh. Wait... younger sister?"

She smiled. "Older now. Not all of us got the dubious benefits of an ice nap or did idiotic things with science."

Steve winced. "Becca!"

"What? You did!"

"It was-"

"Finish that sentence, Steven Grant Rogers, and I will hit you with this stupid cane, because your mother would do exactly that and you know it."

Sam chuckled. "Really?"

"Really."

Fury smiled at the ribbing. "I like her, Rogers."

Steve sighed long-sufferingly. "She hasn't let me go running without medical supervision since I got discharged, Nick."

Rebecca snorted. "You were going to try running and lapping Sam on your second day out of the hospital."

"I get full-body aches if I don't."

She frowned at him. "Full-body aches?"

"Yes. They're annoying. And... you're right. Two days out of the hospital was pushing it."

"Glad we agree." Rebecca looked at Fury, motioned with the cane she was holding to the gravestone. "So... this happen to you a lot?"

"You get used to it." He looked at Steve. "We've been data-mining HYDRA's files. Seems a lot of rats didn't go down with the ship. I'm headed to Europe tonight, wondered if you might join me."

Steve looked at Rebecca, glanced at Sam, shook his head. "Something I gotta do first."

"How about you, Wilson? I could use a man with your abilities."

Sam looked uncomfortable. "I'm more of a soldier than a spy."

Fury glanced at Rebecca. "And you?"

"Nick?!?"

Rebecca smiled at Steve's protest. "What? You need an elderly nurse along for the ride who can put people in four-point restraints using only their clothes?"

Fury paused. "I might."

"I'll consider it, Mr. Fury, but for now I've got work back in Brooklyn and a brother to help find." She handed him a business card from her pocket. "Call me if you need someone to talk to. I listen."

Fury took the card and nodded thoughtfully, then looked at Steve. "If anyone needs me, you tell 'em they can find me right here." Then he walked away.

"You should be honored, that's as close as he gets to saying thank you," Natasha called out as she joined them from the other direction, a file under one arm.

"Not going with him?" Steve asked as they approached her.

Natasha smiled and shook her head. "No. I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one."

"That might take a while."

"I'm counting on it." She glanced at Rebecca, smiled again. "You have another of those cards? It gets lonely in the wind."

Rebecca grinned and handed her one. "Call anytime. I mean it, young lady."

Natasha returned the grin and pocketed the card, then handed the file to Steve. "Got that thing you asked for. Called in a few favors from Kiev."

The file bore printed cryllic on it's cover, and Steve took it gently as if it were going to explode. "Thank you."

"Be careful, both of you. All three of you. You might not want to pull on that thread." And then she walked away.

Steve watched her go, then opened the file and immediately wished he hadn't. On the inside cover was a big picture of Bucky very obviously sleeping in a cryo tank, and then he blinked when Rebecca gasped.

"Oh stele și jartiere mele. That's... where did they get that?" What she was referring to was a smaller picture, paperclipped to the big one, of Bucky in his uniform with an almost-smile on his face. She pulled it free to get a better look, then looked at the back side of the photo. "Steve?"

"What?"

"June '43. The Expo you two went to."

"Expo?" Sam wondered, then his eyes widened when she showed it to him. "Oh. Good question."

"It makes sense," Steve said after a moment of thought. "Dr. Erskine and Howard Stark were both there. There was a recruitment station. I met Dr. Erskine actually at the Expo while trying to enlist again." He closed the file and looked at the photo over her shoulder. "There could have been someone in that crowd with a camera. I don't remember seeing anyone with a camera, but then I was distracted."

Rebecca nodded slowly as she traced his jaw line in the photo. "He shipped out the next day."

Steve gently took the photo from her and handed both it and the file to Sam, then put his arms around her. "I know, Becca."

She took a deep breath, then looked around them at the gravestones. Her eyes narrowed. "I want him back, Steve. I want to help find him. He's amnesic from what you told me, and probably so confused he doesn't know or won't even think to consider that he's got family that wants him back. Nimeni nu se pune cu familia mea."

~*~*~*~

Brock Rumlow woke to a haze of pain that radiated through his entire body. He still wasn't used to it, and may have moaned slightly, not that he'd ever admit to it in court.

"Oh, good. You're awake, you măgar."

Brock opened his eyes to find that the person standing next to his bed was an old lady in disturbingly cute and really out of place print scrubs... sea turtles? It caused him to frown, as not one person on the medical staff in this place had worn anything but dark solid blue. "Who are you?"

"A woman who wants answers," she told him, brandishing a pad of paper and a pen. "You, Mr. Rumlow, are going to tell his everything you know about The Asset, or I'll tell them to withhold your pain meds. Don't make me do that, as I know a thing or two about full-body injuries like yours, and that'd be wrong, even if you did try to kill that nice Mr. Wilson."

Brock stared at her for a moment, then noticed Steve leaning against the door behind her. "Rogers, who is this lady?"

Steve muttered under his breath in Gaelic before answering, which caused the woman to turn slightly and look at him with raised eyebrows. "This is Bucky's sister, Rebecca. And be glad Peg has dementia, or she'd be here with us, interrogating you to within an inch of your life and using those burns to her full advantage."

"Steve, you're not helping."

"Well, she would."

Rumlow refocused his attention on the old woman, looking at her with refreshed eyes and suddenly wanting to be nowhere near her. "Barnes's sister?"

"Yes. And the first thing I want to know is where you labagii were keeping him. Don't make me get creative, Mr. Rumlow, as I'll regret it later and Steve will be traumatized."

Brock told her everything he knew about The Asset, including all the times The Asset had acted out and had gotten wiped or put in cryofreeze. Also the location of the bank. Later, after they'd left, he remembered none of it due to the morphine in his system.

~*~*~*~

At the bank location that Rumlow had given them, Rebecca stared at the chair with it's halo thing and the arm clamps, and the monitors and IV stand in disbelief and horror. Steve put a calming hand on her shoulder, though he himself wasn't unmoved by the whole thing either. "Becca?"

She started swearing under her breath in Romanian, shook his hand off, and went looking through the boxes lined up against one wall. Finally, she stopped and stared down into it at the contents. "Steve, how fast does your metabolism burn again?"

"Four. Why?"

She held up a single-use vial for him to see. "This is alprazolam, triple the dosage for a normal person. All the drugs in this box are like that. Sedatives and hypnotics, some that could also be used to treat epilepsy. Another of the boxes has TPN parental nutrrition bags for IV use. Did he look exhausted?"

"Yes. What is TPN?"

"IV nutrition. Usually, you only give it to someone who can't eat normally." She cursed again, and Steve looked at her with wide eyes. "They took every bit of agency they could away from him. It's sick!"

Steve nodded and handed her the clip board he'd been holding while she looked through the boxes. They catalogued everything, including the cryo pod that made her want to swear some more, pulled the hard drives from the computers after Rebecca had him sit in the chair to see how the monitors worked, and then called the FBI in so they could process everything, too.

Later, with the help of one of Rebecca's grandchildren, they went through the harddrives to discover more horrifying data, complete with video clips, and if she hadn't been over the limit in terms of fighting in combat and age, she'd have joined the Avengers on HYDRA raids.

 

Now...

 

The delivery driver was making his next to last delivery of the day to an Inn on the outskirts of Berlin when a loud noise filled the cabin of the van, and the lights on the instrument panel went out. The engine died, and he sat there for a moment, staring at the steering wheel in confusion. He pulled out his cell phone, only to discover that it, too, was dead.

The driver slowly got out of the van, noticed that the people in the surrounding area who had been either listening to music or staring at their phones intently were all looking around in confusion just like he was. He went to the rear of the van and opened the door to look at the last box, to find it didn't look disturbed at all.

Prying it open with a prybar, he stared at the contents in fascination and suspicion before going and getting his paper manifest. Tracing the line of directions with his finger, he frowned. It was supposed to be delivered to a power station on the other side of Berlin, but he'd gotten stuck in a traffic jam. The point of origin was another hotel...

Twenty minutes later, he was explaining the whole thing to two police officers and showing them his manifest.

~*~*~*~

Tony entered the window-walled office to find Steve standing, watching the monitor with Barnes's cell intently while on the phone, while Wilson listened in with a smirk from his seat at the table. "Uh... Steve?"

Steve glanced at him, then returned his gaze to the monitors. "No, Becca, he didn't kill anyone. Injure yes, because they were shooting at us, but not kill. He was surprisingly restrained... Other than being in a high-security cell? Withdrawn and staring at the ceiling... No, I'm not taking a picture and sending it to you. Seeing the cell would piss you off. Big box-thing with restraints, like what SHIELD put me in... See? Told you it would piss you off... They got there a little after me and Sam... As soon as they let me near him, we'll put him on the phone with you, promise... I know, Becca. I tried to get him to come quietly and get out of there before we got rushed by German Special Forces, but... yeah. Exactly like that. He tried to lie and say he didn't remember me, except for the part where I was holding his journal and it had a flyer in it from the Smithsonian exhibit. Really... I'll tell Director Ross you said that. He's probably never been told off quite like that by an octogenarian before..." Steve laughed, and Tony was surprised as he watched part of the tension leave the man's posture. "Right. Go back to bed and get some sleep, Becca. We'll be fine. It's just a mental eval... yes. I know you'll kick my butt if anything else happens to him. So would George. And your mom. And mine. And Peggy. And Howard. And Colonel Phillips. And your sisters... No, you don't need to fly to Germany. Good night, Becca." He hung up and looked at Tony, who was staring at him with wide eyes. "What? The thing with Vienna hit the international news and the next thing I knew, Becca was calling me, demanding answers that I didn't have because suddenly her brother is apparently out of hiding and bombing people and she knows he wouldn't do that, not even if the UN pissed him off collectively." He frowned. "And also that he has better hair than the guy in the video."

"Who was that?"

"Bucky's sister, Rebecca. Ninety-two and still able to kick my butt when she wants to."

"Oh." Tony paused, glanced at the monitors. "Does he know she's alive?"

"No. Not yet." Steve glanced at him again, noted the case in his hands. "You wanted something?"

"Wanted you to see these," Tony said as he opened the case to reveal two very old pens. He wondered, for a moment, if maybe now wasn't the time for this. He hadn't thought about the situation in terms of family yet when he'd been on the phone with Ross. Did Ross even know Barnes still had living relatives that might want to see him and talk to him? For that matter... did he care? "Pulled 'em from Dad's archives. FDR signed the Lend-Lease Act with these in 1941."

Steve sighed as he pulled a protein bar from his coat pocket and munched on it. "And you wanted to make a case for the Accords, right?"

"Er... yes..." Tony glanced from Steve, to the protein bar in his hand, to the monitors where Barnes was staring at the ceiling. Had anyone thought about Barnes and food yet? If he had a metabolism like Steve's...

Steve took another bite of his protein bar, sighed. "You won't win me over with stories about World War Two politics, Tony. I lived it. And this situation has nothing to do with oversight and everything to do with human rights. His highness was all for the Accords, and then went haring off on a vendetta, tried to kill someone multiple times for supposedly killing his father, and got us arrested for property damage that wouldn't have happened had he not interfered. But he's not the one in the cell due to diplomatic immunity. So... no. Until contingencies are put in place, I will not be signing. So don't try."

"Steve, you got a lot of guys injured."

"No, they got themselves injured due to crappy orders and could have gotten themselves killed because they didn't know what they were walking into. As it was, Bucky was determined not to kill anyone, and they were shooting at him. Also, they were armed and had body armor. He was not." Steve paused. "Unless we count the grenade. And his arm."

"I say we count the grenade," Sam told him.

Tony blinked. "What?"

"If he'd really gone off the rails and bombed a UN meeting, would he really have been hiding in plain sight in Bucharest?"

Tony mulled that over as his gaze traveled to see what was going on outside the glass-walled office, Friday doing a passive scan on every face in the task force command center, and frowned at one guy who was talking to Director Ross with his back to him. "Maybe?"

Steve sighed. "No. No he wouldn't have. Because we looked high and low for him for two years and all Sam and I got for our trouble was cold leads. Lots of cold leads."

Making a mental note to himself to check out the guy still talking to Director Ross whom he suspected might be the psychologist who was going to do the interrogation, Tony let his gaze fall to the back pack on the table. "And this?"

"Journals. Pens. Nothing else. And either I took it, or he was going to continue having a panic attack that Rhodes and GSG9 didn't understand."

"What?"

Steve rolled his eyes in annoyance and turned to look at him, and Tony now understood that he was missing something important. "HYDRA, Tony. Exactly how many times do you think they took choice away from him? How many times did he try to run when the conditioning slipped, even a little, and they caught him again?" He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and Tony blinked at the sudden change in mannerisms. He didn't remember Steve ever running his hand through his hair like that, not even during the Ultron mess. "Two years might not seem like a lot, but... to him?"

Tony nodded slowly. "If he got the chance to run at all?"

"Exactly. So... no. You won't be getting me to sign a document that is obviously dirty politics right now. Three days is not enough time for us to give any kind of input and they knew it."

"We could make the last twenty-four hours legit."

"With just a signature?" Steve pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it over to him. "Read."

Tony opened the envelope to find an eighteen page document from the White House, specifically from the President, declaring James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant, United States Army, a Prisoner of War and subject of numerous outright violations of the Geneva Convention, and granting Steven Rogers and Sam Wilson official authorization for a man hunt to bring him in from the wind. Dated a year and a half ago. "Steve?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you hand this to the director?"

"He didn't give me a chance to. Also: Bombing. And no one actually asked me for my opinion on how best to bring him in. If they had, I'd have told them what I told Nat: that if he'd really gone off the rails, I was person least likely to die trying."

"How did you even get this?"

Steve smiled at him. "Becca has grandchildren who are in the legal field and we had a three-hour meeting with the President. Showed him everything we had, the KGB file Nat got for me, and Becca... let's just say she shamed him into cooperation AFTER he'd been traumatized sufficiently by what we showed him. She might also have ranted in Romanian while pacing the length of the Oval Office. I honestly have never seen a public official so horrified at the treatment of one of his citizens."

Tony stared at him. "You let a ninety-something-year-old woman traumatize the President?" Wilson suddenly chuckled. "What?"

Sam smiled at him. "Oh how little you know, Stark. Seriously."

Steve nodded. "Let is such a strong word. One does not let Rebecca Barnes Proctor do anything. One ducks and covers, and waits for the dust to settle."

Tony smiled wryly. "I'll bet. Why wasn't I invited to this Traumatizing of the President?"

"Miriam video-taped it covertly, and you..." He paused. "You were in Seoul that day, consulting with Dr. Cho, if I remember right. And I didn't tell you because I wanted it kept private."

"But you had the President's blessing to go after Barnes."

"Yes. It's not my fault that the King of Wakanda managed to rally a hundred and seventeen countries into actually cooperating with each other in order to grant us some kind of oversight, but the President's blessing superseded the GSG9 shoot on sight order." His lips quirked. "Also, Colonel Phillips would have had my butt in a sling long before now for letting Bucky stay lost, no matter how ridiculous the situation is."

Tony paused at the mention of a long-dead Colonel as he looked toward Director Ross again, at the man who still wasn't facing the right direction for FRIDAY to get an ID. "Seriously?"

"Yeah."

They stood there, Steve having turned his attention back to the monitors and watching Bucky with a frown, and Tony watching and waiting for the man to turn. After two minutes, he sighed, looked down at the papers in his hand, and realized he had an excuse to butt in. "Come on."

"Huh?"

"Director Ross is briefing the shrink that Geneva sent. I've gotten an ID on everyone else in this room, but not that guy. Besides... don't you want to meet the guy doing the evaluation?"

"Oh. Yes."

~*~*~*~*~

Everett Ross had just finished bringing one of the coldest psychiatrists he'd ever met up to speed when Stark pulled him aside and thrust a document into his hands while looking at the psychiatrist with a shrug. "What?" And why was Rogers behind him several paces, with a passive expression plastered on his face with Wilson not too far behind him?

Stark pointed at the document. "Barnes needs a lawyer."

Everett blinked and looked down to find paperwork that declared their prisoner a Prisoner of War. "Where did this come from?"

"Me," Rogers told him, his tone cold.

"And you didn't think it worth mentioning?"

Rogers stared at him. "With all due respect, Director, you were the one who scoffed at me when I mentioned a lawyer for Bucky. And I'd just spent ten hours in a paddy wagon with a disgruntled monarch. Tony? Got that ID yet?"

Stark was staring at the data being fed to him from FRIDAY, and then slowly took the eyelink off to actually look at the man who had shown up in Dr. Broussard's place. Then he handed the eyelink glasses to Ross, who frowned at him. "It's a computer link to my AI. Look."

"Oh." Ross put it on and FRIDAY streamed the information at him, and he blinked. Ross took the glasses off, handed them back to Tony, and then looked at the person he now knew was an imposter. "You're under arrest, Colonel, for Identity Theft and Impersonating a United Nations Official. For starters. You do not have the right to remain silent and anything you say will be used against you in a court of international law."

Zemo blinked as Rogers clamped a hand down on his shoulder with a glare of cold fury. Then he looked at Stark. "December 16, 1991."

Stark froze minutely. "What?"

Zemo smirked at him.

"Tony," Rogers said, warning and anger in his voice. "Check his bags."

Stark nodded and handed the briefcase to Everett while he himself started going through the secondary bag. The third thing he pulled out was a red notebook with a black star on it. Frowning, he opened it and put the eyelink glasses back on, because it was all in cryllic... Russian. The translations made him frown. "This thing reads like a really bad instruction manual."

Rogers inched closer and looked over his shoulder while still holding Zemo in his grasp. "Where's Natasha?"

"Why?"

"Because that looks like a handler book."

Everett Ross blinked when Romanoff seemed to join them almost out of thin air, pulled the notebook out of Stark's grasp, paged through it, and then glared at Zemo. "You are under arrest for consorting with HYDRA, and whatever else we can charge you with. Tony, find out from FRIDAY where this guy's hotel room is and send the police there."

Zemo stared at her. "I'm not HYDRA. They deserve their place on the ash heap."

"You have a code book you could have only gotten from a HYDRA operative, or you worked in the Winter Soldier program. Either way, it's damning."

Rogers frowned at her. "So you're saying..."

"That this man..." She shook her head. "Conjecture. None of it good."

"Oh. Okay." Rogers glared at Zemo for a moment. "Where did you get that thing, if you're not HYDRA?"

"Cleveland," Zemo admitted with a wince as Rogers's grip intensified slightly.

"Where in Cleveland?" Zemo told him. "And why?"

Zemo looked at Stark, then at Rogers, winced again at Rogers's grip on his shoulder. "To see an empire fall."

Romanoff stared at him, dumbfounded. "Director, get this man into a cell, please." She noticed how tightly Rogers was holding onto him as a guard put the man in handcuffs and began to lead him away. "Steve?"

"What?"

"Hand. Let go."

Rogers blinked and forced his hand to release Zemo's shoulder, watched as the guards took him away. Then he gestured for the book and looked through it. "Do these do what I think they do?"

"Yes," Romanoff said with a visible shudder. "Especially if he hasn't learned to conquer them yet or had any therapy. We know he hasn't had at least one of those things."

"Becca will want to make you and Tony cookies."

Romanoff smiled. "Good. I love it when she makes cookies. I want chocolate chip."

Rogers glanced at the monitors where Barnes was still staring at the ceiling, and frowned when he noticed a slight flinch. "Director?"

"What?"

"He's flinching. Has been intermittently since I've been watching him."

Everett turned to look at the monitor just in time to see another flinch, and for Barnes to bite his tongue and blink several times. The director frowned. "That's not good. Why-"

Stark interrupted him: "Steve, is that arm of his connected to his nervous system somehow?"

Rogers blinked. "It'd have to be. Why?"

"Then we have a problem. Director, permission to go down there?"

Everett nodded. "Granted." And then he blinked when Barnes flinched again, screamed, and passed out. He blinked when he heard Wilson swear under his breath.

"Becca's going to blow a gasket," Rogers muttered, and Everett was left wondering whom he was talking about and why they were going to be upset.

~*~*~*~*~

translation (courtesy of google... blame them if it's wrong)

Romanian  
oh stele și jartiere mele: "Oh my stars and garters."  
nimeni nu se pune cu familia mea: "No one messes with my family."  
măgar: "Jackass"  
labagii: "jerks"

 

And because the wacky scrub tops exist...

Love Stinks (pink): https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0e/b3/ba/0eb3ba8dd518fcc57cd8a111dbb3faa7.jpg

Sea Turtles: http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/mMQAAOSwQM9UZDOv/s-l300.jpg

Pink and Green Monkeys: http://www.uniformadvantage.com/img/products/600x720/pc61smo.png


	2. Breakfast with Bob and Larry...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It is a six hour time difference between New York and Berlin. Steve was talking to her at 9AM in Berlin...
> 
> And because they did exist, the VeggieTales Scrubs: https://www.google.com/search?q=veggietales scrubs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQ8dSu_qHNAhVI_WMKHd4MCUUQ_AUICigD&biw=1152&bih=704#imgdii=iNDvsz37zKOXOM:;iNDvsz37zKOXOM:;9nlU5HiL0qkJvM:&imgrc=iNDvsz37zKOXOM:

Daniel Baines prided himself in being an early riser, even on Saturdays, so he was usually up and at 'em between 5:30AM and Six. It gave him time to make the coffee, listen to the radio, and maybe read the morning paper... even if his grandaunt-in-law was up too. Even then, they could spend a quiet hour in the kitchen, occasionally swapping stories. Sometimes he wondered if she'd started to go senile, what with how often she slipped into Romanian in conversation, but by all accounts she was still sharp as a tack in her nineties and definitely not demented. It didn't stop him from wondering sometimes, though.

It was with those thoughts that he entered the kitchen and found her wearing scrubs (she never seemed to wear anything else... and these ones were VeggieTales-Themed), reading glasses on, engrossed in a thick book while taking notes and muttering to herself about government stupidity. "Becca?"

Rebecca glanced up at him with a frown. "What? This thing reads like stereo instructions! Good morning, Dan."

"Did you even go to sleep?" He knew she'd worked a 10-hour shift yesterday, and then the craziness with the international news...

"Yes. Steve woke me up at 4AM with a phone call. I tried going back to bed after that, but..." She sighed. "Knowing it's being handled doesn't help my nerves any."

He eyed the book. "What is that thing?"

She held it up so he could see the cover. "Government idiocy. Steve dropped this off on his way to the funeral."

"Which you're still upset about not being able to go to."

"Yes, because he needed more support than just Sam. Not that just having Sam around isn't enough support..." She shrugged.

Daniel smiled at that and took a moment to consider the implications of the situation if she'd actually been able to go to London with Steve and Sam Wilson... and silently thanked the universe for small favors as he joined her at the table. "So was the call good or bad?"

"Both. He promised to put Bucky on the phone as soon as he possibly could. Yahweh only knows when that'll be."

That was good news, but... "So how much sleep did you actually get?"

"Six hours."

Daniel nodded slowly. "Right."

~*~*~*~*~

His wife was just getting out of bed when Daniel re-entered their bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. She frowned at him. "Are we out of coffee? I could have sworn I bought enough..."

Daniel ran a hand through his hair, smiled. "No, nothing like that, Miriam. It's just... I don't know what Steve told her when he called, but she's sitting at the kitchen table reading the Sokovia Accords book and waiting for a phone call. This is going to be a really long day."

Miriam frowned again. "How much sleep did she say she'd had?"

"Six hours."

Miriam smiled. "Good. Think we need to distract her?"

"Yes."

"I'll see what I can do," she said as she reached for the phone on her bedside table. "It's not every day that we need a distraction because a family member has been accused of international terrorism."

"Think her shift supervisor will believe you?"

"It's Aunt Becca, who could probably stage an international incident if she tried hard enough. While wearing her skunk scrubs."

Daniel paused. "Good point. Warn them that she's wearing VeggieTales."

"I'm going to have Bob and Larry staring at me for breakfast? How'd she even find where I hid them?!?"

"As you pointed out: It's Becca."

~*~*~*~*~

Following two different leads, detectives from two different police precincts in Berlin met up at the same hotel, on investigating the origin of an electromagnetic pulse device that had knocked out the power in East Berlin several minutes, the other concerning a case of identity theft on a United Nations official.

A woman at the front desk greeted them and smiled when asked about the box that had been picked up by the delivery driver, for one of her patrons, a nice man who seemed to order the exact same thing every morning for breakfast without fail. Upon hearing the detectives concerns, she led them straight to Mister Mueller's hotel room, as the dear man had nothing to hide, aside from his love of black coffee and bacon.

A minute later, she was proved utterly wrong when they discovered the contents of the bathroom...

~*~*~*~*~

When they got to the cell, the first thing Tony did was rush over and pull the power cord feeding power to the restraints. Then he peered in at Bucky to see that he was unconscious, but his hands were opening and closing with jerking motions. "Wilson? How long since he passed out?"

"Two minutes," Sam told him as Director Ross got the door of the cage open and let him in to get a better look at the man. "He's breathing, that's good."

"Are you-" Director Ross started to ask.

"Pararescue," Sam told him as he visually assessed the stiffness of his patient beneath the restraints, then sighed in relief when the man's entire body relaxed, and started taking vitals. "Learned some pointers from a very good nurse, too. Pulse of 55..." He watched Bucky breathe, glanced at his watch. "Respirations 15." He pulled a penlight out of his pocket and checked Bucky's eyes. "Equal and reactive, kinda sluggish. Not surprised, seeing as he was sitting in this thing, being shocked for hours."

Everett Ross winced. "Containment."

"There's a big difference between containment and torture, Director." Sam noticed Bucky starting to blink and pulled back slightly as the man opened his eyes and stared at him blankly. "Hey there." He held up two fingers. "How many fingers, Barnes?"

Bucky stared at him blankly. "Flapjacks."

Sam frowned. "Yeah?"

"Flapjacks." His head lolled to the side and he looked at Tony. "Want flapjacks, Commander." Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out again.

Sam looked at him in confusion before glancing at Tony, and Steve who was standing at Tony's shoulder. "Flapjacks?"

"Better question. Commander whom?" Tony wondered. "And was that seizure caused by the electrical pulses, do you think?"

"Yes," Steve said, causing Tony to jump at how close he was. "He was having absence seizures every time the pulse went off. Only I didn't know about the pulses and thought he was just really withdrawn. And Sam?" Here Steve pulled something out of his coat pocket with his free hand and handed it to him. "If he has another one, give that to him."

Sam took the blister things and stared at it for a moment. "Why do you have orally disintegrating Clonazepam?"

"Because Becca had concerns after seeing the kinds of medication they had on hand for him at the bank vault, and had a long talk with one of her doctor colleagues. One of the uses for Clonazepam is treatment of seizure disorders. Those are 2mg. He might need two, because... metabolism." Steve glanced at Tony. "And he thought you were Rumlow. In Bucky's defense, you do kind of look like him."

Tony frowned. "Right. And he wants pancakes?"

"Apparently." Steve's phone suddenly beeped and he pulled it out to stare at the text message... "Oh, thank God. Miriam bought us ten hours and somehow got Becca called into work. I wonder how she managed that?"

Natasha, standing next to a very confused Director Ross, smiled. "The Truth? 'Help! My aunt's brother has been accused of international terrorism and we need a distraction!'"

"Isn't she 92?" Tony asked.

Steve chuckled. "She's a nurse and still working three days a week."

"Oh. So this Miriam person is basically distracting her with sick people."

"Yep."

"How has Natasha met this woman and I haven't, Steve?"

Steve chuckled again, a wry expression on his face. "Because you've got a reputation she doesn't like and has said no at every attempt I made to get her to the Tower to meet you, but Pepper's slowly changing her mind on the matter."

"Pepper?"

"Yeah."

Sam's attention was taken again by Bucky opening his eyes and looking at him funny. "Hi. Back with us now?"

Bucky looked at him for a long moment before his gaze shifted to Tony and Steve, and he asked a question in Russian. "Prodolzhit' missiyu plana podrobno, Komandir?"

"Guess not."

Steve frowned. "Did he just ask something about a mission plan or report, Nat?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "Yes, Soldat. We want a mission report. Or plan."

What followed was a rapid-fire story in Russian that only Natasha was able to follow, and at the end of it, she was staring at him in wonder. "Spasibo, Soldat. Steve, he thinks you're Pierce and this is seven years ago. Before Odessa. Though how, exactly, a nuclear scientist becomes a doctor about to release a plague, I have no idea."

"As in former Secretary of Defense Alexander Pierce?" Everett Ross asked.

"Yes, Director. Did you not know about Alexander Pierce being HYDRA, or that SHIELD was in possession of the Winter Soldier for fifteen years? Surely, the CIA has better intel than that." She nodded when Bucky mumbled something at her in question. "Dva goda nazad, Soldat."

Everett Ross sighed. "No, I was just asking for clarification. Wait. Fifteen years?"

"Near as we could figure it, yes."

"Nataliya?"

Natasha's eyes widened and she stared at Bucky again. "Yasha?"

Sam watched as Bucky nodded before his eyes rolled back and he passed out yet again. "Steve, I don't think we'll be needing the Klonopin."

"Put it in your pocket, then. Director, can we please get him out of this thing?"

"No," Natasha answered for him.

Steve turned to look at her funny. "Why not?"

"He's slipping between past and present. In Odessa he did not know me. There before he passed out again, he did."

"Good point."

Director Ross was saved from the confoundingness of the scene in front of him when Sharon Carter entered the interrogation cell and handed him a tablet. "What is this?"

"Read," she told him smugly.

He frowned and did so... and then his eyes widened. "Captain?"

"What?"

"Berlin police found the actual United Nations psychiatrist, a mask of Barnes's face, and a wig in the Colonel's hotel room... and they mention an EMP device that was supposed to be delivered to a power station, but the delivery driver got stuck in traffic and it went off somewhere else." The director paused. "An EMP? What kind of stupid plan was this?"

Tony frowned at him. "He was going to use a pinch? Really? That's... so dumb it could have worked."

"What's a pinch and why is it dumb?" Steve asked.

"You still have that catch-up notebook?" Sam asked patiently.

"Yes..."

"Give it to Stark. He needs to write something in it."

Steve handed his catch-up notebook to Tony, who jotted something down and handed it back to him. Steve read it with a frown. "Ocean's Eleven?"

"You wanted to know what a pinch is. That's the easiest explanation, and then you will understand why it's a plan just dumb enough to work." Tony glanced at the other notebook Steve was still holding. "Natasha?"

"Yes?"

"If the power had gone out with the Colonel in here, with that book in his possession..."

"Bad," she answered gravely.

Steve paused and turned to look at Everett Ross. "Wait. You said a wig?"

"Yes. Why?"

Steve smiled. "Because that was one of Becca's complaints about the video that the Task Force released. That Bucky has way better hair, even when he was in HYDRA's clutches." At Sharon's frown, he shrugged. "Cell phone footage from the causeway in DC."

"Oh."

Tony put the eyelink glasses back on and asked FRIDAY to compare... "She's right. In the video, it's too flat and even, and the mask is clean-shaven."

Director Ross blinked in surprise again. "Oh."

"Come on, Director," Sharon told him. "We have a man to fully interrogate, a press release to write about this mess, and a man's name to clear. I'll even let you play bad cop if you want."

Tony smirked. "No, let the cat king play bad cop, staring at the guy from the corner."

"Can't do that," Everett told him. "He's not a member of the task force."

"So deputize him temporarily. Just... watch him carefully, as it was his father that died, and he was willing to kill Barnes here based solely on the evidence of a bad video."

Ross nodded. "That could work."

Steve watched them go and then returned his attention to Sam as he started to take Bucky's vitals again. "How is he?"

"Not having another seizure, thank goodness," Sam muttered. "Pulse of 48, respirations... 17, not labored. Eyes... equal and reactive, if still sluggish. If he'd been having absence seizures triggered by those pulses, no matter how weak or strong they were, for hours, it doesn't surprise me that he's passing out repeatedly and also mentally discombobulated." He paused and looked back at Natasha. "And what was Odessa?"

"Painfully creative," she told him, then blinked when her stomach rumbled.

Steve sighed. "Go get something to eat with Natasha, Sam. We'll make sure he doesn't swallow his tongue in the mean time."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Sam climbed out of the cage and offered an arm to Natasha. "Lead the way, fair lady?"

~*~*~*~*~

At home in Brooklyn, Miriam received a text message back from Captain Rogers. _"I don't know how you managed it, but from Sam and myself (and Bucky when he wakes up again... don't ask): THANK YOU!!!!! We are probably going to NEED those ten hours!"_

"Who are you getting a text message from at this hour?" Rebecca wondered as she paused at the kitchen counter, with her keys and purse in hand. Thankfully, she'd changed out of the hated VeggieTales scrubs, though Miriam wasn't sure if regulation Ceil Blue was actually an improvement or not.

"A friend. Has a long, long day ahead of them, from the sound of it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Have a good shift?"

Rebecca stared at her for a moment and Miriam's resolve to stay silent on the matter nearly broke. Then she shrugged and left without another word.

*~*~*~*~*

They'd been alone for five minutes when Steve's curiosity won out and he finally had to ask about Howard and his wife. "You mentioned you got those pens out of Howard's archives, and I only knew him when he was young and single. I didn't get to meet your mother, Tony. So... I'm asking." He glanced at Bucky, still passed out.

Tony stared at him for half a minute before fiddling with his watch/computer link, and then showed him pictures. "You do realize we're on camera, right?"

"Small talk?"

"Good time for it. There. That's Mom."

Steve stared at the image of an older woman standing with Howard in a blue dress, while Howard himself was wearing a goofy holiday sweater. "When is that from?"

"Christmas of 1980. Dad never wore that sweater around me, but Jarvis got a picture of it." Tony tapped the watch again and another photo replaced it. "This is from November 1991, at a SHIELD function."

Steve was about to say something when words repeated in Russian reached them, and they both turned to find Bucky staring at nothing, repeating the same three words in a cycle. "Huh?"

"On znal menya..."

Tony frowned, listened to the translation that FRIDAY was feeding him. "All right... who knew him and why does he look so shocked?"

Steve looked from Bucky to the images and back again. "He must have woken up right when you started showing me those."

Tony froze. "I triggered him into some kind of flashback?"

"Apparently one where someone knew him." He reached in and shook Bucky's knee. "Come back to us now, Buck." The cadence suddenly changed and then Bucky went silent, still staring at nothing. "Bucky?"

Bucky's head whipped to the side, he stared at the wall for a moment, then he blinked and looked straight at Steve. "The man on the bridge. Who was he?"

Tony frowned. "Is that code for something?"

"I knew him."

"No, Tony. This is a different flashback. And he's not hearing us."

"How do you know it's a flashback?"

"Because Becca made Rumlow tell us what he knew."

Bucky's face morphed into an expression one would qualify as nauseated. "But I knew him." And then he passed out again with a gasp.

Tony paused. "So..."

Steve immediately went for the restraints when Bucky started to convulse, got him out of the restraints, out of the cage, and into a position on his side on the floor away from the cage that would best protect his airway. "Director Ross can be mad at me later for taking their thing apart like that!"

Tony nodded. "Agreed. So what do you think is going on here?"

"Bad flashbacks." The "duh" in his tone made Tony wince. "And from what Rumlow said, about him remembering me after we were attacked on the Causeway, Pierce ordered Bucky wiped." He sighed in relief when the shaking stopped.

~*~*~*~*~

When Bucky awoke again, he found himself laying on his right side, looking at the floor, while Natalia sang softly in Russian somewhere above him. He blinked for a moment, wondering why he was on the floor in this odd position. The last thing he remembered was Steve talking to a man and pictures, and before that, the flying man in front of him asking how many fingers. He lifted his head to look around and found Natalia sitting on his right, and Steve sitting on his left, back against the wall with his eyes closed. "Steve?"

Steve startled, opened his eyes and looked at him. "Hi."

"I want some plums."

Natalia laughed softly. "Plums?"

"Yeah. What of it?"

"Nothing. Pretty sure the cafeteria here has fruit salad."

Steve reached into his jacket and pulled out a meal bar. "Will this do until we can get you some fruit?"

Bucky rolled and sat up, took the bar from him and stared at the wording on the wrapper. "Dumbass Super Soldier Meal Supplement Bar?"

"Tony named them."

"What is this?"

"It's a bit like an MRE, only better-tasting."

Bucky frowned at him. "Why do you have MRE's in your jacket?"

Natalia smiled. "Because it's the lesser of two evils, and usually he only packs those for missions. What did you do, Steve? Take an entire box to the funeral?"

"If I say yes, do you promise not to tell Becca that I did? She hates it when I do that."

Bucky blinked. "Becca?"

Steve glanced at his watch. "We are four hours into our ten hour window. What do you think, Nat?"

"I say tell him."

Steve smiled. "Okay, then." He pulled out his phone and fiddled with it for a moment while Bucky looked at him funny, then handed him the cell phone. "That's Becca."

Bucky looked at the phone to find a picture of an elderly woman standing next to the flying man he'd kicked off of the helicarrier... wearing a brown top with lots of half-circle things. He frowned, at once finding her familiar, and yet not. Her eyes were familiar, at least. "I don't understand."

"Imagine dark hair and significantly less wrinkles. Younger," Steve told him. "And a nursing cap, white."

In his mind's eye, suddenly he didn't have to imagine. He knew her. "Is this... Rebecca? My sister?"

"It sure is. And she's probably going to cuss a blue streak when she finds out that the containment chair they had you in was shocking you and sending you into petit mal seizures."

Bucky handed the phone back to him with a frown. "You mean, she's alive?"

"Yep. And I promised to put you on the phone with her ASAP, but you went into seizures and flashbacks and we couldn't do that, and then Miriam solved it for us by getting Becca called into work on her day off." Steve smiled at him. "So it'll be five hours from now instead."

Bucky joined Steve in leaning against the wall, and then noticed a sticker stuck to his metal hand. "What is this?"

Natalia smiled. "Tony inspected your arm while you were out, found a couple trackers and also four other things, called it an interesting work of engineering, and then asked for something cute to decorate it with."

"And a cat sticker was all anyone could find?"

"Yes."

"Why does this cat look so grumpy?"

"Because it's the Facebook Grumpy Cat."

Bucky paused. "What is Facebook?"

Steve smirked. "Something we had to tear Vision away from because he kept getting into arguments with teenagers. Internet social website."

"Who is Vision?"

Steve continued to smile. "Now that, that is a longer explanation. Think six-foot tall purple one year old, personality a little bit like a butler. Walks through walls."

Bucky turned to stare at him. "What?"

"It's a really long story, Buck, and you've had a bad day, complete with seizures and flashbacks, because a guy from what used to be Sokovian Intelligence Black Ops framed you, and apparently wanted to go where ever the Winter Soldier lab is, to somehow bring down an empire. Explaining Vision can wait until we have time to do it properly."

The guy from before with the pictures and the flying guy and a blonde woman joined them right then. "Oh good. You're up, finally."

"Finally?" Bucky wondered as he looked up at him, then winced as a memory hit him of that same older man who had been in the pictures.

"Yes, finally. You were in and out for four hours." He pulled up a chair and sat down. "I'm Tony, by the way. And you can stop wincing now, Barnes."

"Memory."

"Got that part when you were repeating yourself ad nauseum in Russian. Knew you how?"

"Tony," Steve cautioned.

"No, Steve. I think this is something he needs to say."

"Super soldier serum," Bucky finally said. "Mission. 1991. Howard knew me. Beyond that, I still don't remember much about it." Everybody stared at him. "What?"

Tony nodded slowly, glanced at Natalia, then looked at Steve, who was staring at Bucky in disbelief. "Neither of you knew that part?"

"No," Steve told him. "Howard was working on the serum again? After it got Erskine killed, right in front of him?"

"A lot of people tried it, Steve. Barnes, do you know what happened after that?"

Bucky frowned. "I know I helped train soldiers, but don't remember the circumstances. You... you're not mad?"

Tony looked at him calmly. "Wouldn't say I'm not, exactly. But... whatever ever happened back there, I don't think getting mad at you would solve anything, because from what I've seen so far..."

"Tony?" Steve asked, tone uncertain.

"Insane plan to kill twenty million people? Your getting waylaid for seventy years in the arctic? Treatment so bad it results in full-body convulsive seizures? No."

Bucky stared at him. "But..."

"Watched you pass out repeatedly while having flashbacks, made you accidentally have a flashback that resulted in another one, which led to you having another seizure from what Steve was pretty sure was the memory of being in that chair thing they put you in. About the only thing you didn't do was have a panic attack, and you'd have probably had that, too, if you had woken up in that thing again. No, Barnes. The only people I'm upset with over this right now are the Joint Counter-Terrorism Task Force and HYDRA."

Bucky blinked up at him, dumbfounded. "Oh."

"And I'll have to study that notebook that Steve put in his jacket pocket a little bit, but... I might have just the thing for you. Maybe."

"What notebook?" Bucky asked as he looked at Steve, who pulled it out with a sigh and showed it to him. "Where did that thing come from?"

"Cleveland," Steve told him. "By way of our bomber who had a plan, as Tony put it, so dumb it could have worked." He motioned to the meal bar still in Bucky's hand. "Eat."

"Is there a reason..." And then his stomach rumbled, and he blushed.

"Yes. Metabolism. Passing out to be avoided."

"Right." As he started to eat the meal bar, another man joined them, this one in a suit similar to Tony's, and leaned against the table situated in front of the containment cage he'd been in.

"How can we help you, Director?" Steve asked cheerfully.

The director watched them for a minute before shrugging and tossing a thick envelope to Steve, who caught it and put it in a coat pocket. "The task force is releasing Sergeant Barnes into Avengers Custody, Captain, pending his official pardon, as it is well known how he went missing in action and was presumed dead, and is quite possibly the longest ever serving Prisoner of War." His gaze traveled to Bucky's metal hand. "And I'm curious. Did it happen in the fall?"

Bucky stared back at him for a moment. "I think so?"

"You don't know?"

"Not a lot about it, no." He glanced at Steve. "This is a really odd thing to wonder, but is that blue coat at the Smithsonian my spare?"

Steve nodded. "That, or Howard had another one made. "Why?"

"It's one of the things I remembered right off, while there... that I loved that coat. Wanted to steal it, even if I didn't actually know at the time why I wanted to steal it."

The flying guy chuckled. "It would have made finding your easier if you had, because everybody in America would have been on the look out. National treasure, you know?"

"I was amnesic, not stupid, Mr. Flying Man."

"Sam," he told him, then pointed to the blonde lady. "Sharon. You've met Director Ross."

Steve frowned at Ross. "What do you mean our custody?"

"I mean that this is your purview, Captain, and he's not wanted for the bombing, or anything else... that we know of. Unless you actually were wandering around, targeting HYDRA agents that were prominent, Sergeant."

Bucky shook his head. "No. Why? Did someone think I was?"

Sharon nodded. "We had a string of deaths, all prominent people. A year or so ago."

"Oh."

"If you're releasing him to our custody," Steve began. "Does that mean we can go?"

"It does."

Steve smiled, looked at Tony. "Call Pepper."

"We're on a break, Steve."

"So?"

~*~*~*~*~

Miriam received another text and had to stop typing to look at it: _"We'll be in New York in six hours or less. Stark Tower. Hopefully, she'll forgive us for not calling her if we actually have him with us."_ She stared at it, looked down at her keyboard for a long moment, then sighed in relief. As her aunt would say... "Thank Yahweh!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation... Russian (google translate):
> 
> Dva goda nazad, soldat: Two years ago, soldier  
> Spasibo: Thank you  
> prodolzhit' missiyu plana podrobno, Komandir?: continue mission plan detail, commander?  
> on znal menya: he knew me
> 
> A/N: For those unfamiliar with alternate drug names: Clonazepam and Klonopin are the same thing and Sam would know this, as he's a VA councilor/Pararescueman. (As it's a scheduled drug, however, the story of just how Rebecca got a prescription for it is likely longer than "had a chat with a colleague.") 
> 
> Total Eclipse (brown): http://www.uniformadvantage.com/pages/prod/u834tee-total-eclispe-top.asp?1=1&navbar=5&frmcolor=


	3. Fashion Concerns

A/N: I was a little stuck until the muses dragged me by the ear and pointed and said "do this!" Okay... so we're doing that...

 

~*~*~*~

Miriam was still taking a celebratory moment when her cell phone beeped again, alerting her to another text message. She picked it up and blinked at the request: _There's a tablet which should be on Becca's dresser that is set up for Skype calls. Get it, please? Sam has some concerns and we need to see Becca's closet. Yes, Miriam, I know it's weird._

Frowning, she went to get the requested tablet, sat down on the bed, and turned it on. She accessed the skype feature and accepted the call, and suddenly she was looking at Miss Potts and Steve on a split screen. "Hi. Why do we need to look in her closet?"

Steve chuckled. "I'll let Sam explain that, but basically? Becca might kills us if we let her wear something that could trigger a visual seizure."

"Oh. That bad?"

"Not really, but it's good to take precautions. Plus, on any given day, she wears something like the pink and green monkeys or skunks or... Elvis." In the background, a voice could be heard, wondering who or what Elvis was, and Steve chuckled again. "We'll explain later, Buck."

Miriam's eyes widened. "Steve?"

"Yes?"

"Can I see him?"

"What? Oh. Sure."

The tablet he was holding changed hands, and suddenly she was looking at a man with long hair, very tired eyes, scruffy-looking... but familiar all the same. He didn't look much different from the black and white pictures she'd seen from the forties. "Hi. Who are you?"

Miriam smiled. "I'm Miriam, one of your nieces, Uncle James. Or would you like me to call you Bucky?"

He returned her smile. "Whatever you want, Miriam. Becca really wears pink and green monkeys?"

"Depends on her mood. Also, she can be eccentric."

His eyes shifted to the other side of the screen, to Miss Potts who had so far been silent but had a smile that could have powered all of New York. "And... hi?"

"Hello, Mr. Barnes," Miss Potts said. "Bad day?" He nodded. "We'll do our best to make it better, then. Any requests for dinner?"

"Fruit. Not another of the Dumbass Bars that Steve keeps saying aren't that bad and apparently Becca hates. Anything that you'd give someone..."

"Someone who has been through a lot, like a severe illness?"

"Yes."

"Would soup be okay?"

"It would be great."

"I'll see what we can do."

"Thank you." Bucky's gaze shifted back to Miriam, who was looking at him in concern. "Haven't made my way back to other things yet."

"Ah," Miriam said in understanding. "Can I talk to Steve again?"

"Sure. It's good to meet you, Miriam."

Miriam waited while the POV shifted again, glanced at Pepper. "So how are you?"

"Busy day. You?"

"Had to talk a shift supervisor into an emergency shift with my aunt. And breakfast was had with Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber staring at me."

Pepper chuckled as Steve stared back at them, confused. "Right."

"Who are Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber?" Steve wondered.

Miriam blinked, surprised that he'd not... "Oh. Steve, when this call is over, give your catch-up notebook to Sam. Tell him you don't know what VeggieTales is. He'll probably laugh at you, but..."

"You're kidding."

"Nope." She got up and walked to the closet, opened the door, and showed them. "So. What do you think?"

"Um... Pepper? What do you think, here? Nothing loud?"

Pepper's response was long in coming... "No. Nothing loud. Go for blue or black, as mild as you can. What's that black and pink one with the stylistic designs?"

Miriam pulled the cartwheels, laid it on the bed, and returned to the closet. "And no Elvis. Oh! The leaves!"

They spent twenty minutes pulling things and laying them on the bed, and then Miriam actually looked at them again. "Steve, put Natasha on the phone. We've got fashion to discuss."

"Pull the flamingoes?"

Pepper laughed. "No!"

"Why not? Sam didn't think they'd be an issue..."

"You're not a woman. You don't get a say," Natasha told him as she took the tablet from him. "Okay, Miriam. Show me."

Miriam, Pepper, and Natasha spent another twenty minutes deciding on Becca's wardrobe for the evening.

~*~*~*~

A/N: Hee. As for what they decided? Next update.


	4. He gave it to the Peach. Because he's got hair.

A/N: You know what made the list, after all? The Flamingoes. (Why was this? Well... they're trying to NOT make her suspicious, even though really, she already is.) And! Sing it with me: "Oh wheeere is my hairbrush? Oh wheeeere is my hairbrush?"

~*~*~*~

Natasha ended the Skype call after having passed the tablet to Tony so he could ask Miriam some questions and make a really strange request, to find Steve watching her with an odd expression on his face. "What?"

"What are Veggie Tales and why doesn't Miriam like them?"

Natasha blinked, then looked at Sam, who was actually watching Bucky take an ordered nap on the Quinjet's medical bed. "Sam? It feels odd having to ask, but...?"

Sam smiled. "Cartoons for children, with anthropomorphic vegetables as characters. Stark?"

"What?"

"Does FRIDAY have Veggie Tales episodes on file?"

Tony turned and considered them for a long, long moment. "FRIDAY? Answer the man's question."

"Yes, Boss. A selection of episodes, along with a Silly Songs with Larry compilation, are on file."

Tony smiled. "What do you think, Sam? Movie time?"

Sam reached over and shook Bucky's foot, which woke him instantly with a shriek. "Sorry, Barnes. In-flight movie and pop culture time. With singing vegetables. You are long over due for cuteness. We all are."

Bucky took several deep, calming breaths, then looked at Sam funny. "Singing what?"

~*~*~*~

When Rebecca arrived home from one of the more convoluted shifts she'd ever served at work, Miriam was reading a magazine at the kitchen table while Daniel was enjoying a cup of coffee. She frowned at them as she set her purse and keys in their customary place on the counter, then wondered why Gracie's pet carrier was out. "Miriam? Are you taking the cat somewhere?"

Miriam glanced up at her, smiled. "Miss Potts invited us to dinner. I laid out some choices on your bed to wear."

Rebecca stared at her, then shifted her gaze to Daniel, who simply smiled and took another sip. "Dinner? At the tower? Today?"

"Yes. Go take a shower and get changed."

"And we're taking the cat?"

"Miss Potts likes cats."

"But at dinner? At her home?"

Miriam smiled again, returned her attention to the magazine. "Why not? And how was work?"

"Are you avoiding my questions on purpose?"

Daniel chuckled. "Just go take your shower, would you? Yes, we're taking the cat, and yes it's the tower. What more detail do you need?"

Rebecca stared at them some more before finally throwing her hands in the air and giving up. She left the room, grumbling the whole way.

Miriam grinned and leaned closer to Daniel. "We are so in for it."

"But she'll love it."

From her room, they heard: "Why are these so bland?!?"

Daniel blinked. "I think you're going to have to stop her from..."

Miriam took a deep breath. "Because it's dinner at the tower!"

"It's May! Penguins?!?"

"Oh dear Lord," Daniel said as he collapsed into laughter. "What made you three decide on Penguins as an option?!?"

"They're bland enough not to trigger a possible visual seizure. Also, why should we be the only ones to suffer random Christmas days in May?" Miriam smiled at him, then kissed him on the cheek. "And just think: if she picks the penguins, it might be the cutest thing he's seen in far too long."

Rebecca came back into the kitchen, holding the aforementioned penguins... and also the kitties. "Which one?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Miriam!"

Miriam stood up and heaved a dramatic sigh, then crossed to join her. "Which do you want to wear most right now? Skiing Penguins, or Stylistic Cats? Your choice, and Miss Potts doesn't care what you wear. You know that. She likes everything. Including the cartwheels."

Rebecca frowned at her. "You didn't lay those out."

"No, but I was going to. Now... which will it be? This or that, the peace symbols, the flamingoes, the brown one, the very blue heart one, or the cartwheels? Or the Autumn Leaves?"

"This is ridiculous."

"Yes..."

She looked at Daniel. "What do you think?"

"Christmas in May?"

"That's not helping, Dan."

"It's fashion, and you are being fussy. Sure you wouldn't rather stay home, catch a nap? You did work a shift, after all."

Rebecca stood there, scrub tops in hand, and then her eyes narrowed. "You're distracting me."

"Is it working?"

She looked at Miriam. "Does it really take ten or twelve hours to do a psych evaluation?"

Miriam smiled. "I've heard a full workup can take ninety days. Now, really. Which one?"

"Ninety days?!?"

"In a psych hospital... and I should probably never read Girl, Interrupted again."

"Why were you reading it for to begin with?"

"Aunt Becca?"

"Yes?"

"You. Shower. Clothes. Choice. Dinner." She pointed out the door of the kitchen. "Go. You can be as fussy as you want, but you still need to choose." Rebecca sighed again and, once again, left the kitchen. Miriam looked at her husband. "Remind me to bamboozle her again sometime. This was fun."

"Think we should have let her consider the monkeys?"

"Dan!"

"It was just a thought. Maybe not a good one, but a thought." He paused. "Or Elvis. Of course, then we'd have to explain Elvis."

"Steve already has to. That, and they have to discover the horror of anthropomorphic vegetables."

"Someday, Miriam, you're going to get over that phobia..."

Miriam rolled her eyes and waited, listened as she heard the shower turned on, then returned to the table and pulled a slip of paper out of it. Daniel watched her leave the kitchen, then looked down at the cat carrier where Gracie the brown tabby cat was looking back up at him. "Between you and me? Those two are strange."

"I heard that!" Miriam yelled back at him from out of sight.

"Doesn't mean it isn't true!" He waited for her to come back, which she did with a suitcase. "Miri?"

"She's going to want to stay, even if she doesn't know that yet." Miriam smirked. "I packed the monkeys and the penguins. And the skunks."

"Why?"

"Because Uncle James needs to see it to believe it."

Daniel chuckled. "That he does. So did Miss Potts actually want cuddle time, or...?"

Miriam glanced down at the pet carrier. "Mr. Stark had an odd story about a cat, asked if we had one because they don't, anymore, at the Tower. I showed him Gracie and he said to bring her, wanted to find out if he was right."

"Really?"

"Weird, right?"

"Somewhat."

Miriam sighed and sat down again, setting the bag on the floor. "Call Mason."

"Why?"

"We are going to be putting Aunt Becca in the same room as Tony Stark. You know how much she doesn't like him."

"And why Mason?"

"He has the manual, he's family, he's practically been living with her at work for months."

Daniel stared at her. "And you want the manual... because?"

"Dan, we're going to be surprising her with James AND putting her in a room with Tony Stark. It's better that Mr. Stark is warned, if Steve didn't do it already."

"Good point."

"And tell him to wear the Super Genius ones, if he's isn't already."

"Huh?"

"Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner? They're the mildest ones I can think of that he's got. And I want cartoon characters. Seriously, after a day like today, we all need some cute."

~*~*~*~*~

When Rebecca got out of the shower and returned to her bedroom, she found one scrub top laying on the bed... one that hadn't been laid out before, with a pair of gray-granite pants and a note that said "WEAR ME!" on it in Miriam's hand writing. She stared at the note for a moment in consternation before really looking at the shirt. It was dark grey with black leaves, white stenciled flower-leaves, and pink flowers. She pursed her lips and wondered momentarily why Miriam hadn't just left this one out to begin with.

~*~*~*~*~

A/N: So the one they went with?

This one: http://www.uniformadvantage.com/pages/prod/flower-harmony-pewter-scrub-top.asp?1=1&


	5. Better Late Than Never

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So... apparently I had to write Reunion #1 (Steve) before I could write this one for real. Onward!

Pepper was startled to get a page from the ground floor security desk about a man wearing cartoon characters and mismatching purple pants, and couldn't not go down and check, for that could only be one person. Sure enough, as she stepped off the elevator, she saw Mason Nettleton, one of Rebecca's grandnephews, chatting amiably with the guards at the security desk. "Mason?"

He turned to her and smiled, held up a thick binder so she could see the cover. "Miriam had concerns. This is for Mr. Stark."

Pepper frowned at the cover, which had 'Barnes Family Psych Manual' written on it in big letters. "You... have a psych manual to handle Rebecca?"

"Started out as a joke when Fran took psychology and cultural anthropology, and now... it might have saved Miriam's sanity."

"Oh. Well, come on then." She smiled at the guards. "Thank you." They nodded, and she led Mason onto the elevator. On the long ride to the top of the tower, she had time to study him closer, and realized he was wearing a name tag... "Nurse Proctor's Minder and Gopher? That's an actual job title?"

Mason smiled again. "Human resources has a sense of humor, Miss Potts. I'm listed in their records as an orderly, but not actually an orderly."

"And you make a habit of clashing. Purple really doesn't go with that top."

"But it's bland enough not to be any kind of trigger, right?"

"Yes."

"Then good." The elevator stopped on the Avengers common floor, and Mason sniffed at the air. "Smells good."

She smiled. "That's the loaded potato soup you smell, for James, plus what we're actually having for dinner, because it's not soup for the rest of us. He said he has a touchy digestive system."

"Oh." Mason stared at her for a moment. "How'd he look?"

"Tired." She tilted her head to listen, then smiled again. "And you get privilege of seeing him first in person. They just landed."

"First in person?"

"Miriam got to talk to him via Skype earlier today."

Mason chuckled. "We aren't telling Aunt Becca that."

"Of course not. She doesn't even know about this yet, either." Pepper nodded to Tony when he entered, Steve behind him, then a disheveled and tired-looking James Barnes wearing a backpack with a sternum strap and a red henley shirt that had seen better days, followed by Sam, Natasha, and... "How did you get the King of Wakanda to come with you?"

Natasha smiled. "Invited him to dinner. Hello, Mason."

Mason openly stared at Bucky, who was sizing him up tiredly. "Uh..."

"Oh look," Sam said lightly. "I think we broke your grandnephew, Barnes."

Bucky blinked in surprise. "Grandnephew? One of Becca's?"

"No," Steve told him as he went and took the manual from Mason, looked at it with a frown, and handed it to Tony who took it grudgingly. "Emma's."

"Emma?" Bucky stood there, an odd expression on his face as he stared at Mason, before approaching him and shaking his hand. "I... kind of don't remember much right now, but... Mason?"

Mason nodded and returned the handshake. "Yes. Mason. Hello and welcome home, Uncle James. And we'll help you remember more. Don't worry about that. First thing: Great-Grandma Emma was a shutter-bug, according to Aunt Becca."

Bucky stared at him some more. "Shutter bug?"

"Cameras?"

"Oh."

Mason's gaze traveled to the metal hand he was holding, and then to the sleeve of the shirt. "Are those claw marks?" He turned the arm and frowned at the burned bullet holes. "Steve? What kind of thing happened?"

"Shoot on sight orders, and his highness over there had bad information," Steve answered calmly as he joined them.

Mason sighed. "And?"

"And other stuff. Not important right now."

Tony stared down at the binder in his hands for a minute, taking in what it said underneath the header. "Steve? Is it really so bad that she comes with a psych manual?"

Still holding Bucky's metal hand and looking at the damage done to his shirt, Mason laughed, causing Bucky to jump slightly. "It's more that that is your warning, Mr. Stark. Sorry to startle you, Uncle."

"My warning?"

"She doesn't much like you. We are putting you in the same room with her and surprising her with him. It's better that you're warned." Mason let go of Bucky's hand and looked him in the eyes. "You might want to change clothes, before she gets here. Show it to her after. And... Steve? You know she'll be asking you about your nutrition since you left for the funeral in London. You need to be honest."

Bucky frowned. "What funeral?"

Steve sighed. "I was trying to ease him into things, Mason. Do you remember Agent Carter, Buck?"

"Um... red dress, only seemed to have eyes for you? Helped you get into Austria?"

"Right. She died this week. And I know I have to be honest with Becca, Mason. I didn't feel like eating real food. Doesn't mean I didn't eat anything." Mason rolled his eyes, then reached over and bopped him on the back of the head. "Hey!"

Bucly laughed suddenly, surprising them, and they both stopped at looked at him, startled. "What? It's funny!"

Steve smiled and grabbed his shoulder. "Come on. Let's go get you changed."

"Oh, Steve?" Pepper called out. "Happy went shopping for him, left a bag in your apartment." He nodded, and off they went. She smiled, glanced at Natasha. "What are the chances that he'll get him to shave?"

"We'll see," Natasha answered. She turned and looked up at T'Challa. "So... okay so far?"

T'Challa nodded. "I think so?"

"Good."

Mason's phone beeped and he looked at it. "They're leaving now. Do we need to tell Miriam and Dan to take the long way through Queens?"

Tony shook his head. "With all the construction in Brooklyn? No."

Mason paused. "Oh, right. I'm there every day, and I still managed to forget all the projects!"

T'Challa frowned. "What does construction have to do with traffic?"

"It'll be forty-five minutes, at least," Mason answered. "Normally, it takes less time than that, getting here from Brooklyn. If they took the long way through Queens, it's an hour. Or more."

"Oh."

"Would give Aunt Becca a chance to take a nap, though. She was up at four this morning for that phone call."

Tony frowned. "Oh. That's right. It was 9:30AM for us. And how do you know she was up?"

"I slept on their couch last night. Miriam was afraid Aunt Becca would try to catch a plane to Romania or Vienna." At Tony's expression, Mason grinned. "Sam, you didn't tell him!"

"Some things, you've got to see for yourself," Sam answered. "Steve told him about her meeting with the President, but seeing is believing."

"So, so true."

Tony looked at Sam, still frowning. "I still don't get it."

"The first time I met her was in Steve's hospital room in DC," Sam told him. "She shooed her grandson out after complaining that she hadn't needed anyone to drive her to DC, and then took Steve's vitals. Manually. And then Steve hallucinated both Barnes and his own mother, and she calmed him down and he went back to sleep. The woman is a force of nature. Kind of like a tornado."

"At ninety-two?"

"Yes, Stark, At ninety-two."

~*~*~*~*~

Rebecca held onto Daniel's arm as they made their way through the lobby of Avengers/Stark Tower to the elevators, wondering why Miriam had said she'd follow, since there wasn't anything other than the pet carrier to get from the car, and Dan was carrying that in his other hand. "This is dumb. Why-"

"Becca? Shush."

"Dan, I'm not-"

"You're being fussy because you worked a ten hour day, two days in a row."

She paused as they rode the elevator. "Am I?"

"Mmm-hmm... how's your balance?"

"Fine."

He glanced down at how she was holding onto his arm. "Right. Why did you leave your cane in the car?"

"I don't want it. And I'm upset because Steve said he'd call and he hasn't."

Daniel smiled. "There's probably a reason for that."

"Jerk."

"You can be as fussy as all get out when you're tired. And I'm Miri's jerk, and she loves me for it."

Rebecca smiled at the gentle rebuke, and then the elevator doors opened to reveal a smiling Pepper, and... "Sam, what are you doing here?" They stepped off the elevator, and she noticed Natasha standing with Mason, who was still in his scrubs, and Stark on one of the couches, paging through a binder. "Natasha, I know for a fact that you and Sam and that jerk over there were in Berlin this morning! And where is Steve? He said he'd call!"

Natasha smiled and took Rebecca's hand from Daniel's arm, who handed the pet carrier off to Sam. "Yes, but I'm here now. Come on. Let's go and sit on the couch, all right? Talk a little?"

Rebecca turned to look at Pepper. "What is going on here? They were-"

"Rebecca?" Daniel interrupted. "Go and sit with Natasha, all right? Please?"

"I'm a jerk?" Tony wondered, belatedly.

Rebecca sighed. "Is there going to be an explanation?"

Pepper nodded. "Yes. And then dinner. Go on."

She didn't like it, but allowed Natasha to lead her to a couch far away from Tony. "And yes, Stark. You can be."

Tony frowned over at her, then looked at Mason. "I think I get why she scares you and everybody else."

Mason smiled at him. "You're not seeing her in the monkeys."

"Huh?"

"Fear the cuteness?"

"I am not that bad!" Rebecca told them. She looked at Natasha, who was still smiling. "Am I?"

"I don't think so, no." She looked down at the gray with the pink and white and black... "I was right. Looks even better on you." Rebecca stared at her. "What? It does."

"Natasha, it had better be a very good explanation, or Miriam's going to get a talking to for getting me called in to do teaching when they don't need me. She thinks I have no idea, but when you're relegated to visiting all the children on the floor and acting as their grandmother for the day..."

"Absence seizures."

Rebecca blinked at her, surprised. "What?"

Natasha nodded. "Among other things. We'll explain later, but basically, Steve had a good reason for not calling you. And I ended up doing a recorded mental evaluation on The Asset. Not James, but The Asset. Who, apparently, doesn't, didn't like protein bars. At all. So... trust me when I say that there was a very good reason."

Over by the elevator doors, Sam looked at Pepper. "Where do you want me to put Gracie?"

Pepper shook herself, blinked, then looked at him and nodded to the couch Tony was sitting on. "Over there. And... wow."

Sam smiled. "That's nothing. We both know she could have laid into us harder than that, right Dan?"

Daniel chuckled. "Yes. Just be glad she had a nap on the way here."

Pepper felt like laughing, but her attention was taken by the elevator doors opening as Sam went to go put the pet carrier down by the couch that Tony was sitting on, to reveal Miriam. "How long?"

Miriam smiled. "Couple minutes. Did you tell Happy to get him blue?"

"I told him to pick out whatever looked good in the right sizes."

"Then Happy has very good taste."

"Which is good, because the last thing we needed was for her to see that shirt."

"That bad?" Daniel asked.

"Bullet holes and claw marks."

"Oh." Daniel paused. "Claw marks?"

Sam rejoined them at the elevator doors, nodded toward another man he'd not noticed yet, watching them with a smile. "Formerly upset monarch. Not sure what he thought of Veggie Tales, but we all needed the random cuteness."

Miriam stared at him. "You brought a monarch to dinner and subjected him to Veggie Tales on the way here?"

Sam shook his head. "No, Natasha brought him, saying he shouldn't be alone right now, what with the bombing and everything. And... oh, right. We aren't telling Rebecca. Hopefully, she'll be too distracted to notice."

Miriam continued to stare at him, then marched herself right over to T'Challa and offered him her hand. "Hello. I'm Miriam and you tried to kill my uncle."

T'Challa blinked up at her for a moment before returning the handshake. "It was a regrettable incident."

"I'm glad you realize that, your highness. Would you like to meet Aunt Rebecca?"

T'Challa shook his head. "Not... just now. She seems upset."

"Well, it's been a very long day, sir. And I apologize for coming on so strong like that, your highness. It's just..."

T'Challa smiled at her. "If someone had attacked my family, I'd like to think that my reaction would be to talk to them rather than the alternative."

Miriam returned his smile and moved to sit on the arm of the chair. She glanced at Tony, who was reading the manual with a frown. "Stark?"

"Some of this..."

She chuckled. "There are reasons to the madness, Mr. Stark."

"I'll take your word for it." Tony glanced up at her, noted where she was, smirked, and returned his attention to the manual.

"Aunt Becca, nothing," Miriam muttered to T'Challa. "If he makes fun of Fran's effort, I might smack him."

"Then why have him read it?" T'Challa wondered.

"So he doesn't say or do something we'll all regret." Miriam smiled as Daniel joined them, looking at her position on the arm of the chair dubiously. "Usually, it's Aunt Becca doing it, but... I like him. Can we keep him, sweetie? Just think of it: a monarch in the family. What will everybody else say?"

Daniel chuckled. "Well, we already have a prisoner of war ex-assassin. Why not a king that dresses like a cat?"

"Don't I get a say in this?" T'Challa asked, glancing oddly between them.

Daniel shook his head and sat on his other side. "You survived a bomb and your father was killed not two days ago. Right now? Let us care, while you process and watch the show. Deal?"

T'Challa nodded slowly. "All right. Do you have to sit this close?"

"This is protection. Yours," Miriam told him.

"Mine? From what?"

"The octogenarian. Same reason that Mason brought the manual for Stark. It might be overkill, but we are being proactive."

"Oh."

"Miri?"

"Yes?"

"Did you warn Steve that she took a nap on the way here?"

"Yes."

T'Challa frowned. "Is that a bad thing?"

"She can be extra grumpy, on top of being railroaded all day and not getting that phone call. So... at this point, hope that Natasha can work some magic and explain at least some of why there wasn't a phone call... without Aunt Becca needing to be contained and prevented from flying to Berlin and giving the task force a talking to."

"That's possible?"

"Asks the man who tried to kill my uncle while dressed like a cat. With all due respect, your highness."

T'Challa decided that he didn't mind being inadvertently adopted...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rebecca listened as Natasha explained in deeper detail about the seizures and the flashbacks in silence before taking a calming breath. "But he's fine?"

Natasha nodded. "On concussion protocol from Sam for a while yet, but yes." She smiled. "And you can scratch Veggie Tales off the list of things to catch both him and Steve up on."

Rebecca frowned. "What?"

"Our in-flight movie was episodes of singing, somewhat religious vegetables, and I still don't understand why Miriam doesn't like it."

Rebecca smiled. "She had children at just the right time to have to watch them repeatedly. She doesn't like Barney, either."

"Ah." Natasha chanced a glance around the room. Tony was reading the manual with raised eyebrows. Sam and Mason were still standing with Pepper over by the elevator doors, and... "That either looks like they're protecting him, or..."

Rebecca followed her gaze to see Miriam and Daniel sitting on either side of an unfamiliar dark-skinned man. "Who is that?"

Natasha was saved from answering when the elevator doors opened and Steve stepped out, with a better-dressed and freshly groomed Bucky. "He got him to shave. I'm impressed."

Rebecca stared at her brother in the button-down blue shirt and the black pants, his long hair brushed, and carefully stood up. "Salut frate."

Bucky frowned at her for a moment, an entire room of people between them, before smiling and returning the greeting with a nod. "Buna, surioara."

"Mișcă-ți fundul aici drept în clipa asta!" He obliged, and she practically fell into his arms with a joyous cry, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Nu ar trebui să te aproape ucis în patrie, James! Și tu ești șaptezeci de ani târziu pentru tot!"

Behind them, Steve chuckled, while Tony protested. "That's not fair! I don't speak whatever that is!"

Now Steve outright laughed. "But now you know what it was like living in the Barnes household. Either you learned some Romanian, or you got left out. A lot. Becca, it's not his fault that he's seventy years late returning from the Second World War."

"Nu cipării!" She pulled back and looked up at him. "N-ai fost acest voluminoase. Știu că nu au fost."

Still smiling, Bucky shook his head in the negative. "Nu. Și... patria mamă?"

"Mamă. Tine minte?"

"Incepand de la. Amintit mai întâi de sine slab al lui Steve."

"Buck, that's just insulting."

"Ei bine, ai fost!"

Miriam groaned from her seat next to T'Challa. "You two! English!"

"De ce? Vreau să vorbesc cu James!"

"Mason?"

Mason sighed. "What are you asking me to intervene for? Let 'em!" He glanced at Steve. "And how long did you live with them, anyway?"

Steve grinned. "Suficient de lung pentru Becca și Bucky să mă învețe, și pentru Winifred să -l consolideze. În timp ce eram bolnav în pat."

"Ah."

If it was possible, the grin got bigger. "Agus mhúin mé dóibh roinnt de mo chuid."

At the sound of the oddly familiar language from Steve, Bucky blinked and they turned to stare at him. "Am rememeber asta. Nu ar trebui la-"

"-speak că în public, Steve," Rebecca finished. "Doar un apartament."

"Níl muid go poiblí. Cén fáth a bhfuil tú faoi chúram?" Then he folded his arms across his chest and looked at them sternly. "And if either of you want dinner, you'll play nice for the non-multi-lingual. And Tony, who speaks other things, but not Romanian or Irish."

Natasha blinked. "That was Irish? Wait, why can't you speak Irish in public?"

"Our New York is not your New York, Natasha," Rebecca told her kindly.

"It's not?"

"No. It's not." She looked at Steve speculatively from the warmth of her brother's arms, then held out an expectant hand. "Baruri de masă?"

Steve sighed and pulled two of the meal bars out of his jacket pocket, came over and handed them to her. "Fine."

"Din câte?"

"A whole box."

"De-a lungul cât de multe zile?"

"Becca!"

She shifted her gaze to Sam. "Well?"

Sam chuckled at Steve's discomfort. "Since just after he got the text, before we left the compound to meet you at JFK. And yes, I did make him eat something besides those things at least once."

"Good." Rebecca glanced up at Bucky to find him looking at Steve with an odd expression. "James?"

Bucky shook his head. "Memory. I think. And it was me giving him the third degree. Also Peggy, Howard... and Colonel Phillips."

She laughed. "I knew I liked that man!" Rebecca turned her head to look at Pepper, who was smiling. "So. Dinner? Obviously, Steve needs to eat something substantial."

Pepper nodded and led them all to the table, where a feast of chicken fried steak, corn, and mashed potatoes was ready and waiting. "James? Loaded Potato Soup for you. If you want, you can try something here, but..."

Bucky nodded. "Thank you."

"My pleasure."

The meal went off without a hitch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation...
> 
> Romanian
> 
> Salut frate: "Hello brother."  
> Buna, surioara: "Hello sister."  
> Mișcă-ți fundul aici drept în clipa asta !: "Get your butt over here right this instant!"  
> Nu ar trebui să te aproape ucis în patrie, James ! Și tu ești șaptezeci de ani târziu pentru tot !: "You're not supposed to nearly get killed in the motherland, James! And you're seventy years late for everything!"  
> Nu cipării !: "Don't care!"  
> N-ai fost acest voluminoase . Știu că nu au fost .: "You weren't this bulky. I know you weren't."  
> Nu. Și ... patria mamă ?: "No. And... motherland?"  
> Mamă. Tine minte?: "Mother. Remember?"  
> Incepand de la . Amintit mai întâi de sine slab al lui Steve .: "Starting to. Remembered Steve's skinny self first."  
> Ei bine , ai fost !: "Well, you were!"  
> De ce? Vreau să vorbesc cu James !: "Why? I want to speak to James!"  
> suficient de lung pentru Becca și Bucky să mă învețe , și pentru Winifred să -l consolideze . În timp ce eram bolnav în pat .: "Long enough for Becca and Bucky to teach me, and for Winifred to reinforce it. While I was sick in bed."  
> "Am rememeber asta. Nu ar trebui la-": "I remember that. You're not supposed to-"  
> "-speak că în public , Steve": "Speak that in public, Steve"  
> doar un apartament: "Apartment only."  
> Baruri de masă ?: "Meal bars?"  
> din câte?: "Out of how many?"  
> De-a lungul cât de multe zile ?: "Over how many days?"
> 
> Irish Gaelic (I found a translation site. There was much rejoicing.)
> 
> Agus mhúin mé dóibh roinnt de mo chuid.: "And I taught them some of mine."  
> Níl muid go poiblí. Cén fáth a bhfuil tú faoi chúram?: "We're not in public. Why do you care?"


	6. Numbered Serta Sheep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: About the language/translation... it would have been done the way that it was suggested in review last chapter, with the in-line translation thing, but that gets visually distracting for me. Also, the point of them having this reunion in Romanian (of which the speakers present were Steve, Rebecca, Miriam, Mason, and Bucky), was because I've been in bi-lingual situations where I totally needed subtitles and didn't get 'em. I wanted to try to convey a situation like that... and tried it, I did. (Next time I try it, the method won't be that one.) Mischief managed. :) Also, I was wrong. Dinner didn't go off without a hitch...

Rebecca had just finished her second piece of chicken fried steak and was considering having another when she noticed that her brother was still on his first bowl of soup. Frowning, she watched at he continued to lean on his right hand and mechanically eat with his left. He finally did finish the bowl, blinked down at it in confusion, and then Pepper got up and placed another in front of him from the warmer. "Uh..."

"You're not full," Pepper told him as she returned to her seat next to Tony. "Eat. No arguing."

"But-"

"We've seen Steve eat when he hasn't had enough for a while," Pepper said, motioning with her fork to Steve, who rolled his eyes at her and reached for another piece of steak. "And he hasn't stopped yet. So..."

Tony cleared his throat, and Rebecca looked at him curiously. "Barnes, besides the meal bar you had, when had you last eaten?"

Bucky had to think for a moment. "I left my plums at the newsstand when I found out about Vienna. So... before that." He nodded to Steve, who was still eating next to him. "And then he was in my apartment. Snooping."

Steve chuckled, then swallowed. "You left the journal in the open. I'd hardly call that snooping. And Rebecca, before you grill him on food, there was some in the apartment... including toffee bars which were sitting on the mentioned journal. It was nice, but Spartan, and before the furniture got weaponized, it was livable, weapons in the fridge and all." 

Rebecca nodded as Steve returned to eating voraciously. "Fair enough." She paused. "Weapons in the fridge?"

"Best place for them," Natasha said from her seat between Sam and T'Challa. "If on the run. You would never suspect anyone to pull a gun when you think they're going for milk or something."

Sam turned and looked at her funny. "That's one nightmare I didn't need to consider, Romanoff."

"Sorry." The expression on her face, however, clearly said the opposite.

On T'Challa's other side, Miriam frowned as she watched her uncle start in on his second bowl of soup, eating mechanically again. Then she tapped Daniel's shoulder, he leaned back, and she leaned closer to Tony. "Whatever you've got planned, with Gracie? Don't do it when he's that tired."

Tony paused and watched as Bucky ate, his eyes drooping shut, leaning on his hand like that, then winced. "No. Sam, why didn't you let him sleep?"

"Concussion protocol." Sam winced as Rebecca glared at him. "What? He scared the crap out of us with those seizures, and I was afraid he'd start having them again."

Rebecca sighed, shook her head. "No, I'd have kept waking him up, too, in that case."

"I'm not tired," Bucky mumbled. "And I'm right here."

She patted his left shoulder. "Eat. And we know you are. And..." Rebecca frowned as she felt the hard metal beneath the fabric of his shirt, at how far it went until she hit soft flesh. "And I think I want to see this tomorrow."

"Huh?" Bucky wondered.

"Nothing. Eat." She glanced at Steve, on his other side, and noted the frown. "How bad?"

"Bad enough," Steve told her sincerely between bites.

Rebecca nodded slowly, then looked at Tony. "What are we doing with Gracie?"

"Tony has a theory," Pepper told her. "But we'll talk about that later." Her gaze shifted to Bucky, then she blinked in surprise at how he'd fallen asleep with the spoon half-way to his mouth, leaning even more heavily on his right hand. "Or now. Now's good. Wasn't he speaking not forty seconds ago?"

"He could sleep while nested in the most uncomfortable tree during one of the colder winters on record, and still manage to keep a hold on a sniper rifle," Steve said, finding the humor while Rebecca pulled the spoon out of her brother's metal grasp, pushed the bowl away, noted the cat sticker, smirked, and coaxed him into changing positions without waking him up so his head was pillowed on his arms. "Becca?"

"Conked right out," she muttered as she rolled her eyes. "I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone fall asleep like that. Of course, usually, they're children. So... Gracie?"

"It's a crazy theory," Tony said, staring at Bucky. "But... FRIDAY, project a picture of Alecto." In the air above them, shimmered into existence a see-through picture of a cat... a brown-patterned tabby cat that bore a resemblance to Gracie.

Rebecca frowned as she studied the picture. "All right, so it was a nice-looking and healthy cat..." 

"Oh, it gets better. FRIDAY, show us Mom and the kitten. Side by side for comparison." The picture shifted to show another picture, this one of Maria Stark with the same cat on her lap, only smaller and wearing a bow. "At the time of this picture, I was off at school and didn't know she'd gotten a cat. When I was home that December, she didn't mention it, nor did I see it. I found this picture when I was going through things after Alecto passed away in 2006, and passed it off as a gag picture. Only... now I'm not so sure. Which is why I wanted a cat, Mrs. Proctor. To see if I was right or not."

Slowly, she put her hand on her brother's back and rubbed in concentric circles, smiled. "Soft spot for animals, this one."

"Right now, though... just a theory," Tony admitted. "Could be nothing. Wanted to be sure. But if he's tired enough to fall asleep while eating, it can wait."

Mason, on Sam's other side, smiled. "Was it a good cat?"

"The best."

"Then good. Alecto?"

"One of the three Furies in Greek mythology," T'Challa explained, startling Miriam with his suddenness. "Good name for a cat."

Bucky grunted, cracked an eye open to look at her. "Ma?"

Rebecca frowned, wondering if she really did look that much like their mother. "Yes, James?"

"School tomorrow?"

"No. Go back to sleep." And then he was out again, and she was left staring at him. "Was that a flashback?"

"Sounded like it," Steve mused. "At least he gets the happiness of no school tomorrow, right?"

She chuckled, continued rubbing soothing circles on his back. "There is that. Was it like this in Berlin?"

"No. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we'll take this over that."

"Seconded," Natasha said. "Talking to The Asset... was disquieting. We didn't tell him about hours two and three, Rebecca. He didn't seem to remember it, so..."

Rebecca nodded in agreement. "Better not to."

"Muzzlin's a menace," Bucky mumbled, startling them. 

Daniel frowned. "Muzzlin? Isn't that a cloth? How can a cloth be a menace?"

Steve shook his head with a smile. "No, this was a cat. And I had asthma. He's right, Muzzlin was a menace... but mostly to rats and mice."

"That was before you two moved out," Rebecca observed. "And before his first tour to North Africa."

"Sounds about right."

Tony paused. "You can date his memories with a cat?"

Rebecca nodded. "If I remember right, Muzzlin died before they moved out. Steve? Your memory is fresher than mine."

Steve considered them while taking another piece of steak. "Yes. And be glad it's memories of the family pets, and not..."

She frowned when he trailed off, suddenly finding his piece of steak interesting. "Steve?"

He motioned to Bucky with his fork. "He's suggestible. Later. And there are worse things. Don't want to say them, not if it was us talking about a cat that sparked him while sleeping."

Tony nodded, and they finished their meal together. It didn't stop him from throwing troubled glances in Bucky's direction every so often...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

While Rebecca directed Steve and Sam in getting Bucky moved from the table to one of the couches, Miriam asked Pepper if she minded letting Gracie out of the pet carrier, even though the cat seemed to have fallen asleep. Pepper looked at the sleeping feline with a smile. "Sure, let her out." 

Miriam nodded, and opened the door. She waited while Gracie opened her eyes, yawned, and simply laid there in the carrier looking up at her in boredom. "Okay, fine. I'll leave the door open. Come out when you want." She glanced over to where they'd finally gotten her uncle situated on one of the longer couches, an extra small cushion under his head and a blanket on top of him. "How did he sleep through that?"

"Too tired to do much else," Rebecca told her as she sat down on the couch at his head and tousled his hair playfully. "At least he got bacon, right?"

"You're happy he got bacon?" Miriam paused. There was bacon in that soup? She hadn't really looked at it. "Miss Potts, I'm going to be wanting that recipe."

Pepper smiled. "I'll make sure to send it to you. The soup was Happy's suggestion when I was at a loss after actually getting a look at French Onion in the recipe book I have."

"And yes, Miriam. I am happy he got bacon with his soup," Rebecca told her. "Seems to be tolerating it okay, too. Which is good. So... movie? I did hear you right, right Steve?"

Steve nodded as he sat down on the floor in front of the couch, next to her and in front of Bucky. "Tony and Sam were making fun of me for not having seen Ocean's Eleven, whatever that is, in Berlin. Something about an EMP pinch?"

Tony chuckled as he sat down on the couch by the pet carrier, next to Pepper as if they weren't actually sort of distant in their relationship right now. If she was willing to let him be this close, then he'd take it. "Right. It's an effort to explain a part of our bomber's plan to Steve... without subjecting him or Natasha to Hollywood's version of Russians." Pepper turned and looked at him expectantly. "GoldenEye? James Bond?"

"Oh. Good call. What was the bomber's plan?"

"Part of it? To knock out the power at the task force building. With am EMP device."

"Really?"

"Really." He relaxed when she sat back into the cushions with a roll of her eyes. "So-" Tony was interrupted by Bucky sitting up suddenly, eyes wide and blinking at all of them, seeming very unsettled. "Barnes?"

"Wasn't I-"

"James?" Rebecca asked patiently.

"What?"

"Lay back down. If you want, stay awake for the movie." 

He turned to stare at her. "Movie?"

"Yes. Now lay down."

Tony watched as she coaxed him into laying down again, while keeping her hand on his head as he laid there. In a minute, he was sleeping again. "Right. Friday? Play Ocean's Eleven for us, please."

Miriam shook her head as she took a seat next between Mason and Daniel on another couch with T'Challa. She glanced toward the pet carrier and watched as Gracie finally came out of the pet carrier and began exploring the room first, and then the people, before settling on Steve's lap. "Aren't you glad you don't have asthma now, Steve?"

"More than you'll ever know," Steve said as he scratched Gracie behind the ears. Then he blinked when she hopped from his lap, up to the couch and laid next to Bucky. "Traitor."

Rebecca laughed. "She's got good taste, and there's no better therapy right now than a purring cat."

Steve glanced back at him. "If he's as tired as he seems, it explains plenty."

"It does?"

"Yes. Namely how he didn't really question me when I handed him one of the meal bars."

Natasha frowned from the armchair she'd settled in. "You mean that was you, testing the waters?"

"Yes. He failed."

"Steve, one of these days..." Rebecca started to say, and then she noticed Bucky looking up at her sleepily. "Oh. Hey."

"He's a punk. Bigger punk."

She smiled down at him. "Yes, but he's our punk."

"And Muzzlin's still a menace. My menace."

"Okay."

He blinked. "Wait. What's Muzzlin doing here?"

"That's Gracie, James."

"Oh." And then he was out again, as the opening titles flashed. 

Rebecca stared down at him for a long, long moment before glancing around at everyone else. "On the one hand, he's too tired to think straight. On the other, he keeps waking up and not making much sense. It's worrying but cute."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As the closing credits rolled, Steve yawned. "I get why you and Everett Ross thought it was a stupidly brilliant plan."

"Hey, don't knock the power of a properly-placed EMP device, Steve," Tony told him, then blinked when Steve yawned a second time in quick succession. His gaze shifted to Bucky, who was looking back at him with sleepy awareness, and Rebecca who had also noticed the yawning. "Mrs. Proctor? What do you think? Get Steve a pillow?"

"The sheep are jumping," Bucky mumbled in agreement, which made Tony smile. 

Steve glanced back at him, stifled another yawn. "Right."

"And dancing. Dancing sheep?"

Miriam laughed. "I like the thought of dancing sheep. And Steve? Pillow?"

"I'm fine. Long day. Days." And then he yawned again.

Rebecca sighed and waved at Natasha to get him a pillow or cushion or something. "Lay down before you start talking gibberish like by brother, would you?"

"The sheep have numbers," Bucky put in helpfully.

"That one made sense," Pepper noted. "And he's right. They do."

Steve frowned and turned to really look at Bucky. "Are you telling me to count sheep?"

"The jumping, dancing ones." And then the awareness dropped out and he was asleep again. 

Tony chuckled and started to reconsider his second movie choice of Seabiscuit... "He makes sense when he's not exhausted, right?"

"He should," Rebecca said as she kept her hand on her brother's head, stroking his hair soothingly. "Probably won't remember any of this, though."

"And he was pretty with it when he finally woke up as himself in Berlin," Natasha reminded them as she brought a cushion over and handed it to Steve. "If the exhausted one there thinks you should use that pillow, listen to him."

"The car was red," Bucky mumbled in his sleep. "And flew. And crashed."

Steve paused at that, frowning. "Wait. It was red? It looked green to me."

Rebecca nudged his elbow with her foot. "You and your color-blind self would never have been allowed to drive."

"Well... hey! No fair!"

"Hay is for horses. Lay down, Steve."

Sam frowned. "Steve was color-blind?"

"Among other things. The serum..." Rebecca shrugged. "Good, bad. I don't know. He's alive. That's what counts, right?"

"Oh."

Steve sighed and finally did lay down, which caused Rebecca to rest her feet on his upturned hip. "I don't get sick anymore, Becca. It's a good thing. And that was June of '43. The Expo."

Tony's eyes widened. "Oh! That flying car!"

"Didn't fly much. Hovered for thirty seconds." 

Miriam chuckled. "And on that note, because some of us are going to church tomorrow, Dan and I are leaving now."

"What if I want to stay for the second movie?"

"Do you want to sleep on the couch for a month, Sweetie?"

"Not really. Lead on."

She smiled, then looked over at Rebecca, who was watching them with a somber smile. "I left your suitcase in Steve's apartment, along with your cane, if you change your mind and actually use it for a change. Also got you a month off."

Rebecca sighed. "When did you pack for me? And you waited until now to tell me? What if I didn't want a month off?"

"This afternoon, and you're using Steve as a footrest. There a better time?"

Steve yawned again. "Oh, sure. Use me strategically."

Miriam smiled again. "And anyway, I think you're going to be more than a little distracted with 'jumping and dancing sheep' over there to concentrate on much else. Don't you think?"

"Yes," Rebecca admitted. "But you might have wanted to ask me first. You know... respectfully."

"And you might have wanted to think twice before tormenting me with Bob and Larry this morning."

Rebecca chuckled at that. "Fair enough. Go on, will you?"

Miriam got up and crossed the room to lean over Steve and peer down at Bucky, who hadn't woken again. Then she shook her head and stood up again, nudged Steve gently with her foot. He looked up at her in question. "You did good. All of you did."

"Glad someone thinks so. Go on."

Miriam nodded, momentarily grasped onto Rebecca's free hand in a moment of understanding, and then went to extract her husband from his seat next to T'Challa, who himself had fallen asleep some time during the movie. "Oh, come now. Think we can leave him like that?" 

Mason rolled his eyes at her. "Go."

Finally, Miriam and Daniel got on the elevator. "Oh, and Mason?"

"Yeah?"

"Keep a tight watch," she said, nodding to Bucky.

"Miriam?"

"Yes?"

"Git."

"Bob Hope was funny," they heard mumbled from Bucky, and everybody turned to peer at him, while Steve sighed. 

Daniel frowned. "Bob Hope?"

"There was a movie," Steve explained. "Don't remember the name of it. Late '41."

"Oh. Well, he's not wrong. Bob Hope was indeed funny. Show him some of the of the comedy things for the troops when he wakes up."

Tony nodded. "Will do. Good night." He watched them go, then glanced at Rebecca, grinned. "Friday, order me a numbered Serta sheep."

Pepper laughed. "Tony!"

"What?" Tony asked, feigning innocence. 

"What number sheep do you want, Boss?" Friday's voice asked from thin air.

Tony grinned again. "Forty-two. And cancel Seabiscuit. Put Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy on."

"Yes, Boss."

And that's how Steve was introduced to Douglas Adams... while Rebecca was using him for a footrest.

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Bucky awoke again, it was the wee hours of the morning, and he was somewhat startled to find himself laying on a couch with a brown-patterned tabby cat as a nap partner, purring next to him. He stared at the cat for long moments as he registered that someone's hand was in his hair. Frowning, he looked to find Rebecca, leaning back into the cushions with her eyes closed and snoring softly. Then he heard another snore coming from in front and below, and looked to find Steve, minus the leather jacket he'd been wearing like armor, but plus a blanket and a pillow, sleeping. 

He laid there, wondering how he'd come to be laying on the couch when the last thing he remembered was the bowl of soup. It had been a very good bowl of soup.

"Go back to sleep, Uncle," Mason stage whispered at him, and Bucky looked again to find him sitting in an arm chair with a book.

"Where did the cat come from?"

"That's Gracie, she's Aunt Becca's. And Mr. Stark had a theory. He's probably not wrong, but you, as tired as you were, were stuck on calling her Muzzlin. And singing, dancing sheep. And Bob Hope."

Bucky stared at him. "Somehow, I get the feeling that you're being sarcastic."

"No, actually. Catch a few more winks."

"How tired was Steve?"

Mason glanced at him over the book. "You remember Agent Carter at all?"

"Some."

"She died this week, Uncle. Your rescuer there probably didn't sleep for three days, and then Vienna happened and he had to save you from GSG9 and the monarch over there." Mason motioned to T'Challa, who himself was sleeping another couch, a blanket covering him.

"Oh. Is that why Becca got on him about the meal bars?"

"Yes."

Bucky again looked down at Steve. "Punk."

"Remind him of that later, hmm?"

"Mason?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"Any time. Back to sleep with you."

Bucky laid back down and let the purring cat lull him back to sleep.


	7. The Mystery of the Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Qweb was correct: the way to really introduce someone to Hitch-Hiker's Guide is to hand them the book. (And if Tony had really been thinking about it, he'd have introduced Steve to The Goonies.) Onward.

The night before...

 

The second movie was nearly over when Pepper's cell phone beeped with a text alert. She pulled it out to find a message from Miriam: "Take some pictures of them for me? We have a family to prepare, and James was left out!"

Pepper smiled and looked over at Sam, caught his attention, and nodded to the sleeping trio, as both Steve and Rebecca had also nodded off. "Miriam wants pictures. Something about preparing the family and including James because he was left out?"

Sam considered that, then pulled out his own cell phone and fired off a question at Miriam. They chatted back and forth for a minute or two before he chuckled. "Ah. We forgot to kidnap James on the way."

"What?" Tony wondered. "He's right here. We didn't kid-"

"Tony," Pepper interrupted. "Not Bucky over there, but Rebecca's great-grandson James."

Sam nodded. "Nice kid. In residency on Long Island, now."

"Stony Brook..."

Sam paused and looked over to find Bucky watching them. "Well, now. He isn't clueless about places to be in medical residency on Long Island."

"Mission," Bucky mumbled.

"Oh. Do I want to know what the mission was?" Sam waited, wondering if it was real consciousness, or the false awareness they'd been seeing since he'd fallen asleep at the table. Sure enough, Bucky conked out again. "Stark?"

Tony blinked and shook his head. "Those flashbacks are going to be brutal when he's actually awake for them, aren't they?"

Sam nodded, glanced at Steve, sacked out and audibly snoring in front of the couch. "At least we all get sleep first." 

"I'll do it," Mason said suddenly, brandishing a digital camera that Sam hadn't seen him carrying. Or had he this whole time? "Miriam is right. We do have family to prepare and surprise, and James will be upset that he missed this."

Tony watched as Mason expertly took pictures from four different angles with the camera, and then frowned when Steve started to whimper and squirm in his sleep. "Uh, Mason..."

Mason held up a hand, waited a second or two, then bent down when Steve started to get louder, and rubbed circles on his back. "Shhhh...." Steve relaxed, stopped squirming, and Mason breathed a sigh of relief. He glanced at Tony, who was watching him with wide eyes. "Saw Aunt Becca do that once. So glad it worked, because it doesn't look like I'd be able to pry Gracie away from Uncle James with a crowbar." 

"Train," Bucky mumbled, and Mason turned back to look at him in confusion. "Fall. Ice. Storm. Russians. Snow... Karpov. Knew."

"Russians?" Mason asked.

"Knew. Worked with."

"Mason, keep him talking," Tony said suddenly before Sam could object. "Karpov who?"

"Vasily," Bucky said after a moment, blinking with awareness he'd not had for hours. Then he gasped. "Bone saw. Arm. Zola. Ice... Fennhoff."

Sam suddenly joined Mason at the couch, bending over Steve to look Bucky in the eyes. "Hey. You're here now, Barnes. Come back to us."

"Alone."

"Yes, but you're not now. Understand?"

Bucky stared up at him, unblinking. "Gabe?"

Sam frowned. Liquidity in those flashbacks, then. "No. I'm Sam."

"Sam?"

"Yeah. Sam."

"Bad day, Sam," Bucky said before sleep took him again. 

Sam watched him for a minute, then stood up and turned to glare at Tony. "Keep him talking? Are you serious?" 

"Yes," Tony said as he fiddled with a StarkPad that he'd pulled out, frowning as he looked something up... "Forty-seven."

"Forty-seven what, Stark?"

"That's the earliest that Arnim Zola was officially out of prison, according to the SSR files. Russians... that narrows down the how, if it was the Russians that found him and carted him off." Tony looked up from the tablet, noticed that Pepper was visibly upset and staring at Bucky. "Pep?"

"He was awake?" Pepper wondered, horrified. "For an operation like that? Who does that?"

Sam shuddered at hearing her say it like that. "No one good, Pepper. And..." He turned and looked at Rebecca. "Oh."

Mason frowned. "Sam?"

"I'm glad she didn't hear that. Can you imagine if she had?"

Mason nodded, motioned to where her hand was, still resting on Bucky's head. "Sure can, but let's not dwell on what could have beens."

Sam looked at Tony. "Is FRIDAY recording everything Barnes says?"

Tony nodded. "Planning on making him a monitor link like mine." Here, Tony held up his left wrist, displaying the watch-link. "Better than a tracking anklet. Less intrusive."

"Why...?"

"Ever get lost in the middle of nowhere?"

"When I wasn't in combat? No. Why?"

"Then you'll never know the answer to that, Sam." 

 

Now...

 

Steve blinked himself awake to find Mason watching him from over top of a thick book, and Gracie at his side, but... "Where's Becca?"

"Bathroom," Mason told him.

"And Gracie?"

"You started having nightmares a third time."

He frowned and pet Gracie on her back. "Did you get any sleep at all?"

"Dozed off a few times, sure." Mason smiled when Rebecca returned, stepped over Steve, and sat back down on the couch. "Better?"

"Much," Rebecca told him. "Any problems?"

"Other than Gracie ending up with Steve in the last twenty minutes? No."

Steve chuckled. "She's welcome to join Buck again on the couch if she wants. What are you reading?"

"Siberian Light," Mason said, holding up the book. "It's the reason I kept dozing off. It's boring."

"Then why are you reading it?"

"Not all political thrillers are on the level of Tom Clancy."

"Tom Clancy?"

Mason blinked, then looked at Rebecca, who was frowning in thought. "You didn't introduce him to Clancy? Aunt Becca!"

Rebecca laughed and glanced down to find her brother still sleeping. "I figured it'd come up sooner or later."

"Do I hear voices?" Pepper asked, entering the common living room with a smile and a bag from MacDonalds. "I do! Breakfast?" She looked at Bucky. "Well... for some of us."

Steve sat up, and Gracie hopped up to the couch again. "Sounds good. He'll... want flapjacks when he finally does wake up. Maybe."

Pepper looked to him funny. "Flapjacks?"

"He was post-ictal and weird. Wanted flapjacks." 

Rebecca carefully stroked her brother's hair. "He loved pancakes. That doesn't surprise me."

"True. I'll have four of whatever is in that bag, Pepper," Steve said.

"Good, because four of these are for you." So saying, she handed him four breakfast sandwiches. "And I expect you to be wanting pancakes later, too." Then she handed a sandwich to Rebecca, and two to Mason, who finally put his book down. She frowned at the cover. "What is that?"

"Really boring murder mystery, set in Tunguska, Siberia."

"Any good?"

"No, and Miriam told me to keep a tight watch, so boring murder mystery it is." 

Pepper smiled, then frowned and handed a piece of paper to Steve. "James had some bad flashbacks after you two nodded off. It wasn't very coherent, but once he started, he didn't stop talking until Sam re-oriented him."

Steve read the list of things and winced as he ate. "This... will be bad."

"It will."

"Worse than that awful chair in the vault?" Rebecca asked.

"Yes." Steve finished eating his sandwiches, then seriously looked at the list again. "Becca?"

"Hmmm?"

"When we make him have that exam later? Gently." Then he passed the paper up to her and she read it in silence. "The thing I don't recognize is Fennhoff, whatever or whomever that is."

"Ivchenko," Rebecca muttered. 

"Huh?"

"Peggy mentioned a jailed hypnotist, once. Real name was Johann Fennhoff." She looked up at Pepper, eyes narrowed. "Does Stark have access to the SSR's records?" Pepper nodded. "I need someone to cross-reference Johann Fennhoff and Arnim Zola."

"Why?"

"Because..." She glanced down at Bucky. "Some things went down in '46."

Steve frowned at her. "Becca?"

"I wasn't present, Steve, and she didn't tell me everything. Just... the thing with Ivchenko turning out not to be Ivchenko." 

"Oh. What does that have to do with now?"

"Won't know that until someone does the cross-reference." Rebecca sighed. "I want to be wrong."

Pepper stood there for a long moment after collecting the wrappers from Steve, then nodded. "I'll go do that search."

"Thank you." Rebecca watched Pepper go, then looked at Mason. "Where is Sam, anyway?"

Mason smiled. "Miriam wanted pictures, and due to the detail, it'd be bad if we sent pictures via cell phone, so I sent him with my camera to Brooklyn last night."

"Oh. Pictures for what?"

"James... and our family who need to be warned." Mason looked at Steve, who had an odd expression on his face. "You forgot to stop on Long Island and kidnap James."

"Oh! This name thing is going to be confusing, isn't it?"

"Somewhat." 

Rebecca laughed, then blinked when Bucky started to move under her hand and verbalize. "Steve?"

"Hmmm?" Steve turned and saw Bucky open his eyes. "Hey there. You awake?"

Bucky stared at him. "Did you really not sleep for three days?"

"You are! Good. And..." Steve winced. "It was a bad week, Buck. Before."

"Oh."

"Who told you?"

"Mason." 

Steve turned back around and looked at Mason with raised eyebrows. "Why...?"

"He woke briefly around 0300, called you a punk and wondered about Gracie, and then conked out again."

Steve chuckled. "Ah. Well, he's a jerk." Bucky reached out and bopped Steve on the back of the head lightly. "Buck!"

"What?" Bucky asked innocently, and Rebecca laughed as she continued to stroke his hair. "Becca?"

"Hmmm?"

"Why are you petting my hair?"

"It's my sisterly right to do so."

He glanced up at her, noted her expression... then blinked. "Wait. Apartment. Mine and Steve's. William? That was his name, right?"

Rebecca looked down at him for a long moment, unblinking as she studied his face. Then she nodded slowly. "Yes, James. That was his name."

"Then... this..." Bucky frowned. "Did you and Hazel and Emma stage a wedding in our apartment? And... the details are fuzzy here. I don't understand."

"You were shipping out the next day," Steve told him. "Her wedding was in five weeks. As it was, I nearly missed it due to Project Rebirth."

"And I didn't want you to miss it," Rebecca explained. "So with mother's blessing, we had an unofficial ceremony in your kitchen. Mason, text Miriam or Sam and tell them we'll be needing at least two photo albums, including my wedding album. And..." Here, Rebecca swatted at Steve with her free hand. "That's for becoming a science project and surprising me at my wedding with your bigger self! And you didn't even say hello! I had to find out way after the fact from Peggy Carter, and then looking at my wedding album!"

Steve moved far enough away so they'd stop mildly abusing him. "At least it wasn't you I crashed through that dress shop window on, while chasing down a HYDRA spy, Becca. And I wasn't sure how to explain it, so stop hitting me!"

"You're not going to win that one, Steve," Mason observed as he completed the text on his cell phone. "I wasn't there, and I want to hit you. And... dress shop window?"

Steve shrugged. "It was five minutes after ending up like this, I didn't know my own abilities, and I crashed through a window display because of it."

"Ah."

Bucky chuckled. "He still didn't completely know when he busted everybody out of Kreischberg. Not sure what was more shocking... seeing him above me, or watching him jump a chasm in the middle of an explosion."

Rebecca frowned down at Bucky, then looked at Steve, who was staring at him. "So... that answers the question about your memory."

"I've got twelve journals, Becca. Have been recovering my memory for a while now." He frowned up at her. "And... where is William? Shouldn't he be here, too?"

Rebecca looked away, bit her lip. "He should be. He would have been. I..."

"Becca?" Steve asked. "It's not anyone's fault that time took him."

"I know that, just... days like today, he would have loved it." Rebecca looked again at her brother, tears in her eyes. "He died. Twenty-two years ago, now." 

Bucky blinked up at her. "Oh. I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Shut up. You didn't do anything, and it's good to ask, no matter how painful." She ruffled up his hair. "And I got you both back. It's worth the pain of talking about painful things. Besides... it was a happy memory, James, the last time I saw you." She glanced at Steve. "And you, too."

Steve nodded. "It was."

"Oh, is everybody up, now?" Tony asked, entering the common living room, with what looked like a watch or a bracelet in his hands. "Good." He came over to the couch, handed the watch-link to Bucky, who looked up at him funny. "Put it on, Barnes."

"Why?"

Tony smiled down at him. "For the sake of monitoring you. You... if no one is around, and you have a bad flashback or something, FRIDAY will be on alert."

Bucky stared at him. "You're worried about-"

"Buck," Steve interrupted. "Just do it. No arguments. If Tony is that worried, he has a reason."

Tony watched as Bucky frowned but put the watch-link on his right wrist, then shifted his gaze to Gracie curled up against the man's chest. "So... nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Nothing what, Stark?"

Rebecca smiled. "If it was as simple as handing him a cat, don't you think he'd have started having flashbacks by now? Hmmm?"

Bucky frowned, glanced at the cat curled up next to him, then looked up at Tony. "Is there something I don't know here? Cats and flashbacks?"

"Yes," Steve told him. "Tony has a theory, about you and a cat, and his parents. Could be nothing, might be something." 

"Oh. Stark, grab a chair or something. Please?" He really didn't want to move, because the couch was so comfortable, and looking up at Tony like this felt odd.

Tony sighed and went to get a chair from the table, pulled it over next to the couch, and sat down. "Better?"

"Much. Now explain."

"You... really don't want to move, do you?"

Bucky smiled. "It's comfy. So...?"

Tony sighed again, and then fiddled with his own wrist link, got it to project a picture of a brown tabby cat. "This was Alecto. He showed up in a pet carrier next to my bed the morning after my parents car accident, with no explanation for how he got there. The theory I had here, once I realized what HYDRA did when you started having flashbacks in Berlin... was that it might have been you, however weird that is to consider."

Bucky glanced up at Rebecca. "Looks a little like Muzzlin."

"That's what I thought, too," Rebecca said, smiling. "So, since we know it's not a visual trigger... Stark, go sit over with Mason. We are going to try something. Steve, come here." Steve came over and sat in the chair that Tony vacated. "Grab Gracie."

As Steve scooped Gracie up, she meowed in protest, and Bucky suddenly found himself standing under a streetlight, staring at a destroyed camera. He heard a mewling sound, like an animal, and he turned to survey the area, looking for witnesses, before his gaze settled on the car. And then he was back on the couch again, gasping. "Gah!" 

"Woah," Tony said, blinking at that reaction as Bucky sat up so fast and scrambled to the other end of the couch. 

Steve stared at Bucky, then looked down at Gracie, who looked back up at him with a surliness that only a cat could project. "Was it the meow?" 

"Yes," Rebecca said as she gently took Gracie from him. Then she looked at her brother. "Get back over here, James."

"But... but..."

"Acum, James." He blinked at her, startled by her sudden switch in languages. "Figura asta cu noi." When he didn't move, she sighed, stood up with Gracie, and moved to join him at that end of the couch. "Steve? Over here, please."

Steve shifted the chair farther down and repositioned in front of them. "Okay."

Rebecca handed Gracie to Bucky, and then watched him carefully as he looked down at her, and then lifted his metal left hand to pet her head while using his right to cradle her against him.

Gracie leaned into his left hand, and his face went blank. They waited a minute, and then Bucky blinked again and smiled down at her. "Hey. I don't have to give you up."

Rebecca held up a hand to forestall Tony from saying anything. "Well?"

"Couldn't show up at the rendezvous with a cat. Wasn't mine to keep. The order was specifically for no witnesses, but no one mentioned animals." He shook his head, blinked again. "Was it the nearest house? Stark?"

"Yes. And thank you, by the way. Best cat ever. FRIDAY, pull up a picture of Pepper and Alecto." Tony motioned to the TV screen, and Bucky looked to find a picture of Pepper with a cat on her lap, smiling down at it. "I think she liked him better than me, at first."

Steve chuckled. "I could see that."

"Steve!"

"What?" Steve asked innocently. Then he looked at Bucky. "So, now that we have the cat mystery solved, you want some breakfast? It'll be flapjacks."

Bucky frowned. "Flapjacks?"

"Hey, you wanted them yesterday. Might as well."

Bucky nodded. "Sure. I don't remember saying it, but... sure." He looked down again at Gracie, then shifted his gaze to Rebecca. "Gracie?"

Rebecca smiled. "After George Burns and Gracie Allen. Something I think we'll need to find copies of and show you both. What do you think, Mason? Burns and Allen, and other fifties and sixties television?"

Mason chuckled at his uncle's incredulous expression. "Why not? We could all use a laugh or two, right?"

Bucky looked at Steve to find him looking at Rebecca with raised eyebrows. "You didn't know that, either?"

"No, I didn't even think to ask about her cat's name. Becca, are you seriously going to make us watch-"

"Steve," Tony interrupted. "They're not wrong. We could all use a laugh or two." 

"And yes," Rebecca told him. "There shall be much catching up for both of you. Together." 

Steve sighed as Bucky released the cat and she pranced away to first stare up at Tony, and then found a sunny spot next to the windows to curl up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation from Romanian
> 
> Acum: Now.  
> Figura asta cu noi: Figure this out with us.
> 
> A/N: The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show ran from 1950 to 1958, when Gracie Allen retired due to heart trouble.


End file.
